ITEM: D6142L

How can I read a file from tape that was not created with UNIX or AIX?

Question:

I have a tape that contains several files but were not backed up with
mksysb, backup, tar or cpio. How can I read these off onto AIX?

Response:

If by referring to "files" you are indicating that there are multiple
dd command and the no-rewind tape device. If by multiple files, you
are referring to many files backed up to a single tape image, then you
can read off the entire image using the 'dd' command, but AIX does not
know the format of the individual files within the image, so you would
have to have an AIX command comparable to the command used to create
the backup in order to separate these files.

In any event, the command to pull the data off the tape (using no-
rewind device) is:

dd if=/dev/rmt0.1 of=/filename bs=\#\#\# conv=sync

where "/dev/rmt0.1" is the tape device name
      "/filename" is the name of hte output file (for the tape image)
      "\#\#\#\#" is the physical block size of the tape drive (or a multiple 
          of the physical tape drive block size setting)

You must also make certain that the tape drive physical block size is
set to the same value as it was set to when the backup was created. If
the block size was set to 0, set to 0 again and use "512" in the dd
command above.




Support Line: How can I read a file from tape that was not created with UNIX or AIX? ITEM: D6142L

Dated: August 1993 Category: N/A

This HTML file was generated 99/06/24~13:30:56

Comments or suggestions?
Contact us