30 Dec
2022
30 Dec
'22
5:02 p.m.
On 12/30/22 15:17, John Herron via cctalk wrote:
This may be a larger conversation than I intend but
how would you all
generally start if you ha backup tapes that you wanted to try and
read/restore?
Supposedly they're Amiga qic tapes. I'm a little worried about the
structural integrity of the tapes. Not knowing what software was used,
would this be a literal job for something like tar via a Linux system? Then
see if I can interpret the dump and sort out files afterwards?
It is unlikely that the tapes are in tar format, so tar on Linux won't
help. The chance that they are in tar format is much higher if they're
from Amix (Amiga Unix) instead of AmigaOS.
There is a better possibility that the tapes were created by BRU since
AmigaOS 2.x (and maybe later) included a version of that. BRU is now
Argest Backup, if you need to go down that road.
It is also possible that the tapes were created with any of the many
third-party backup applications that existed for AmigaOS.
In any case, using dd (not tar) on Linux to copy the tapes to disk to
"interpret" and "sort out files afterwards" is at least a starting
point.
Other list members are better qualified to comment on the physical
aspects of doing that without destroying the fragile old tapes.