19 Apr
2006
19 Apr
'06
9:39 a.m.
Steve Robertson wrote:
Hey guys,
I've got a bunch of old 9 track tapes, including bootable tapes for a variety of
systems, that I'd like to "backup". The tapes vary from MPE install, HPUX
install, and misc DATA tapes (multiple formats). Some of the tapes are pretty old and I
really need to archive them. I think CD's are gonna be around for a while so, that
seems to be the most reasonable medium.
I know, I know... CD's don't last forever. That's a different topic and not
something I can worry about right now.
You can periodically duplicate the CD's, or just make the data available
on the NET. Hopefully then, if you lose your copy, you can beg for a
copy from someone who copied it from you.
I've also got a pile of spare 9GB HD's. I
suppose I could dump the images there as well. With multiple copy's on CD and on
HD's. The data should be safe.
There is a 9 track attached to my HPUX 10.20 box so, reading and writing the tapes is no
problem. The HPUX box does not have a CD burner directly attached although, I can FTP
files to a WINDOWS box and burn CD's there.
So the question is:
Can I just DD the tapes to a file and stick the file on CD/HD then recreate the tape from
the CD when needed?
Nope.
You need to keep track of the block sizes as you read the tape. Also you
need to keep track of the EOT markers. dd doesn't do this.
You should be able to find a program on the net that will read the data
into a .tap (or similar) file (anyone have a link?). This program really
should be added to the simh tools, if it isn't already.
I've written a version in basic for VMS, but that isn't going to help
you very much with unix.
NOTE: Some of the tapes span multiple volumes. Is this
gonna be a problem.
Shouldn't be.
Recreating on an actual tape may be a problem, due to
the in-exact lengths of the physical tapes. Copying to a tape of the
same length may not work due to numerous factors (less stretch,
larger gap size, slightly shorter physical tape length, etc.)
TIA,
SteveRob