bigjohn@manta.NOSC.MIL (John Morris) (09/12/90)
Problem: copying a tape that is in "boot" format. One method involves the 'dd' command but this involves having enough disk space to accomodate the file. Question: Is there a way, if you have two cartridge tape drives, to directly move the data from one tape onto the other through a reasonable size buffer. My computers are SUN's, mostly 4's of one variety or another. I have a couple external SCSI cartridge tape drives and think this should be do-able. by the way, how do you 'make' the boot format tape?
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (09/13/90)
In article <1205@manta.NOSC.MIL> bigjohn@manta.NOSC.MIL (John Morris) writes: >One method involves the 'dd' command but this involves having enough >disk space to accomodate the file. You should be able to "dd" from tape to tape, also. >Question: Is there a way, if you have two cartridge tape drives, to >directly move the data from one tape onto the other through a reasonable >size buffer. There is also a simple utility commonly called "tcopy" for copying tapes (or other files where preserving record size is important). Look around for it on your system; if you can't find it I could mail you a version. The big problem with "streaming" tapes is that they are horribly slow if you can't keep them streaming, which UNIX applications seldom can.
bob@wyse.wyse.com (Bob McGowen x4312 dept208) (09/13/90)
In article <1205@manta.NOSC.MIL> bigjohn@manta.NOSC.MIL (John Morris) writes: >Problem: copying a tape that is in "boot" format. >One method involves the 'dd' command but this involves having enough >disk space to accomodate the file. >Question: Is there a way, if you have two cartridge tape drives, to >directly move the data from one tape onto the other through a reasonable >size buffer. You could still use dd as follows: dd if=/dev/src_tape of=/dev/dest_tape bs=1024k ^^^^ The buffer used in the above is 1M, substitute as you can for larger or smaller. The if above is the input_file, of is the output_file. ---deleted system types and boot tape creation question--- Bob McGowan (standard disclaimer, these are my own ...) Product Support, Wyse Technology, San Jose, CA ..!uunet!wyse!bob bob@wyse.com