Tape dumping programs for Unix/Linux...

From: Carl Lowenstein <cdl_at_proxima.ucsd.edu>
Date: Fri May 3 03:04:23 2002

> Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 21:23:26 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Doc <doc_at_mdrconsult.com>
> To: ClassicCmp List <classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org>
> Subject: RE: Tape dumping programs for Unix/Linux...
> In-Reply-To: <000501c1f245$6a304ca0$1aefffcc_at_Shadow>
>
> On Thu, 2 May 2002, Douglas H. Quebbeman wrote:
>
> > I just did a 'dd' of a bad QIC-80 tape; it read the entire tape
> > as a single file, and didn't bail out.
> >
> > I've not done that with magtape, but ISTR someone else here
> > saying that 'dd' does raw reads, bad blocks and all...
> >
> > My bad if not true.
>
> No bad, just an honest difference in perspective. I recently went
> through this with a set of VMS-based diagnostics tapes. AFAIK, the
> tapes are undamaged, but dd returns a valid read - of the first file on
> the tape - and stops. I'm not that familiar with non-"streaming"
> formats, so I just accept what is without knowing why....
> dd on a disk or raw filesystem ignores files. On a tape archive, even
> using the raw device as the if, dd reads files and stops at the end of
> the first record.

I think you have your terminology mixed here.

dd reads records and stops at the end of the first file.

    carl
Received on Fri May 03 2002 - 03:04:23 BST