Tar: problems with reading data off a tape

From: Colin Brooks <cbrooks_at_nature.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wed, 15 Oct 1997 09:56:28 -0700

Hello. This list was very helpful with my last tar problem back in January,
so here it goes with another one - hope folks don't mind.

Recently I received an 8mm 112m tape from a colleague with some hopefully
useful data on it. He says that he wrote the data to the tape in
"low-density" format using variable length block size on a Sun system with
the tar command. I am trying to read the tape on Alphastation 250 4/266
running DU 4.0b.

So far, none of my usual methods have been able to read the tape. I tried
"tar -tv" to read the directory of the tape. "tar -xv" "tar -xvs"
tar -tv" and "tar -xvf /dev/rmt0h" all failed with the following message:
tar: [offset 0]: No space left on device

I am using an 8505 tape drive that came with my Alphastation. The tape
drive appears to be working fine (my system dumps are doing fine, for
example). I have been able to read tar tapes from other systems before.
The person who sent me this tape did include a tapelist (called
ttf_hardwoods.9.10.97.lis) that included a listing of the contents of the
tape - which definitely looks like what I'm after.

Does anyone know what is going on? Am I missing something in being able to
read this tape? Does the system message mean anything - or is this some
other problem?

Many thanks in advance, and I will summarize.

Sincerely,
Colin Brooks


****************************************************
Colin Brooks
GIS Programmer Analyst
Integrated Hardwood Range Management Program
Hopland Research & Extension Center
4070 University Rd.
Hopland, CA 95449
Primary #'s - TEL:(707)744-1270 FAX:(707)744-1040
Work E-mail: cbrooks_at_nature.berkeley.edu
http://danr.ucop.edu/ihrmp
http://www.pacific.net/~cbrooks/gis1.shtml
I'm also found at:
ESPM, University of California - Berkeley
160 Mulford Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-3114
Secondary #'s - TEL: 510-643-1136 FAX: 510-643-5438
****************************************************
Received on Wed Oct 15 1997 - 19:17:15 NZDT

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