Tape dumping programs for Unix/Linux..

From: Raymond Moyers <rmoyers_at_nop.org>
Date: Thu May 2 16:57:49 2002

On Thursday 02 May 2002 15:56, you wrote:
> > You would rather work the drive to death ?
> When I break it, I fix it. I'm good at things like that.

 Well i really meant the tape, its whats really suffering
 the damage, sorry i wasnt more clear.
>
> > You know, any really old tape you are attempting to recover
> > you really do not want to be running it thru the tape deck
> > very much
>
> For tapes that far gone, a digital read won't work. You have
> to build your own drive and sample the analog data coming off
> the heads using A/D and not using the digital-based discriminator.

 I havent gone that far ..

> For tapes not that far gone (like the ones of mine that spent
> days under water and then months with stachybactris growing on
> them), I have a wet-read technique that prevents most shoe-
> shining.

 That i have done, it works for really old floppies too, some
 may look at you funny to see a floppy head doing some boating
 on a wet disk, but it certainly works

> > disks are huge these days, and the content is best messaged
> > on a new disk rather than an old tape.

> Agreed, *that's why the TAP format exists*, as well as Stan
> Seiler's tapedisk/disktape system.

 I need to play with those tools, you hooked me.

> > Wrong i used it as an example, the raw stream already fit
> > its intended destination in the hard drive case.
>
> If the structure of what is on a tape depending only on the
> bits written to tape you would be right. BUT IT DOESN'T!!!
>
> Record marks on a tape are lengths of tape where NO BITS ARE
> RECORDED. Your technique gets the bits, but misses the are-not-bits.

 Fair enough, but remember my post was about cat vs dd, and
 was not dealing with all these other issues being tossed
 up, it was to point out that what he was doing would be easier
 with a simpler tool

 It certainly didnt apply to preserving the information
 needed to rewrite a new 9 track tape.

 I think your being a bit rough on me here, your givin me
 a GI bath for things that was outside of the scope of my
 focus.

 Raymond
Received on Thu May 02 2002 - 16:57:49 BST