> From: Raymond Moyers <rmoyers_at_nop.org>
> To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> Subject: Re: Tape dumping programs for Unix/Linux...
> Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 14:08:41 -0500
> In-Reply-To: <20020502200530.E35218_at_MissSophie.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de>
>
> On Thursday 02 May 2002 13:05, you wrote:
> > On 2002.05.02 18:25 Raymond Moyers wrote:
> > > Whats wrong with cat ?
> > [...]
> > > I see most are using dd when cat is all they need
> > cat(1) and dd(1) do not read / recognize the _physical_ block size of
> > the tape.
>
> At the portion of the work where you just want to get the stuff
> spooled to a file, you dont care about "block size" yet, you
> just need to get it pulled off.
>
> Unix will treat any device as a stream of bytes
>
> On my old sony, mkboot is broken, you cant use the OS to
> create a bootable volume of itself
>
> so ... you hang the old scsi disk off your linux box and
> cat /dev/sdb > /files/sonyhdimage.img
>
> hang the new scsi disk off your linux box
>
> cat files/sonyhdimage.img > /dev/sdb
>
> Put new disk in sony, look mom it boots !!
>
> Now you redo the disklabel and shove everything
> except root up to a new volume above the footprint of the old disk
> redo the middle volumes to suit ... move the stuff back down
> mount the new space as /usr/local whatever
>
> Now you have a 1g bootable disk in a machine that cannot create
> one for itself...
>
> Do you see what im getting at here ? hello ?
>
> and guess what ... i never even bother to involve myself with
> any "block sizes" even as the multiple volumes on
> that image uses a mix of logical block sizes.
Guess what. You aren't dealing with structured magtapes. And it's
a very rare disk drive that has a mixture of block sizes.
carl
--
carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego
clowenstein_at_ucsd.edu
Received on Fri May 03 2002 - 02:34:56 BST