Back up 9 Track to CD - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

17 Apr 2006

...
  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. 
After sending the original message, I found a "copytape" utility in some old
archives. I had to hack the code to get it to compile under HPUX but, it's finally
working, more or less. The utility reads a tape to a file/tape preserving the blocking. I
copied an old HPUX install tape, with multiple block sizes, to a file. I was then able to
create a tape from the archive that LOOKs like an original tape. Until I do a complete
install using the copies, I can't be sure they'll actually work.

...
 From the looks of it, this might be the solution
I've been looking for. 
The program could really use some additional features. Like an ASCII header appended to
the beginning of the file to indicate what the file is, how to recreate the original tape,
system, date / timestamp, etc...

Hmmmm... I guess that'll give me someting to do :-)

Thanks, SteveRob