Tape dumping programs for Unix/Linux...

From: John Foust <jfoust_at_threedee.com>
Date: Thu May 2 18:54:09 2002

At 04:10 PM 5/2/2002 -0400, Douglas H. Quebbeman wrote:
>No. And I see no useful purpose in including that in the format.
>If the read was recovered, you have the data; surely you would
>*not* want to recreate a tape and make a previously marginal
>block, marginal again on a clone?

Choosing between the loss of all the data, and a partial
copy, I'll take the partial copy.

I have many 8-inch disks with bad blocks. I'd like to preserve
the data if at all possible. A simplistic 'dd'-style read
won't preserve everything; it'll bail out when it has a problem.

It has nothing to do with any hope of recreating the original tape.
If all the data is recovered, sure you could make a copy from it.
If it isn't, then you have some of it, as opposed to none of it.

- John
Received on Thu May 02 2002 - 18:54:09 BST