Indeed. There is *nothing* magical about making tapes from selected files. What you have to keep in mind are: - select the correct tape boot blocks (MT, TK etc) - grab the correct kernel and/or RAM disk image - use the right blocksize for the above "file" (usually 512bytes) For the remaining files on the tape, blocksizes vary between OSes, and can be anywhere between 512 (old systems) and 10K (UNIX tar files). The key issue is to generate a magtape file marker between the individual files, so the tape handling software knows where a file ends. The block size and tape marker generation are done correctly by the Maketape program. If you want to do it manually: - grab the first ("bootable") file for the tape, and dd it to the tape: dd if=bootfile.img of=/dev/ntape bs=512 this copies "bootfile.img" to the tape, using a block size of 512 bytes, and when done, it will write a tape mark and **NOT** rewind the tape ("ntape" - can be /dev/nrst0, /dev/nrmt0h, /dev/ntk0, etc.) - copy the other files to the tape: dd if=nextfile.foo of=/dev/ntape bs=10240 which copies "nextfile.foo" to the tape, using a block size of 10240 bytes (common for UNIX tar files) and when done, writes the tape mark, and NOT rewind. - when done, write a tape mark and rewind the tape: mt -f /dev/ntape weof mt -f /dev/ntape rewind where the first command (Write EOF) is optional, as most UNIX systems do this automatically when rewinding a tape in write mode. This creates a magtape in the right format for booting. Tools like the Maketape program do this as well, based on a small description file which tells it what goes where and such. Correct. The 'dd' program **does not** set the physical block size of the tape device, as it is a generic block/deblock tool, and has no knowledge of devices whatsoever. It sets the block buffer size(s), on which the READ(2) and WRITE(2) system calls are based, which in turn tell the tape device driver what the block size is to be. This only works in the "raw" mode of tape devices, by the way- always use the 'r' device file of a tape unit when doing the above. Cheers, Fred