topic Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape in Operating System - HP-UX

Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

Ted Ellis_2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 14:24:32 GMT

We are restoring a series of tar archives that go back 10 years. The backups were done with tar and span 2 or 3 tapes. I have verified the blocking factor, but I have been unable to restore beyond the first tape. I have tried the -M option for multi-volume, but it complains when I start the second tape... it says that the file that was being backed up at the end of the first tape is not on the second. When I tar -tv the second tape, it does show the files and the first one is in fact part of the last file from the first tape. Anyone have ideas on what I can try to get around this? Or am I stuck because someone used tar where they should not have...

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

A. Clay Stephenson — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 14:38:06 GMT

This does not sound good and tar has never been very good at recovering from errors. My first suggestion is to download and install the GNU version of tar from:
http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Gnu/tar-1.13.25/

You have some options that allow it to skip over files, it sees as corrupt. You might also try using pax which can read tar as well.

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

Martin Johnson — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:02:51 GMT

Try pax (/usr/bin/pax).

HTH
Marty

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

Ted Ellis_2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:13:04 GMT

thanks... I am using GNU tar.... this is a 9 year old archive that was oringally created on a DEC platform. Single tape archives have been no problem.... it is just the multi-colume ones that give me pain. It may be that I have to settle for an incomplete restore and just document the issue.

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

Hai Nguyen_1 — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 15:20:14 GMT

Do you know what software was used to backup? That may help you in recovering by using the same software (assuming the software is available.)

By the way, HP fbackup can span more than one tape using tar mechanism. Is it possible for you to try HP frecover to see if you can restore?

Hai

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

Ted Ellis_2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 17:42:23 GMT

The OS was Ultrix... I have a new twist. I am able to recover the files (so it appears) using a local drive on a very old DEC box with Ultrix. The server does not have enough space locally... how can I rediret the extracted files onto another server on the same network?

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

A. Clay Stephenson — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 17:51:42 GMT

The easy method would be to use NFS to a filesystem on a remote box.

Re: Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

Ted Ellis_2 — Fri, 26 Jul 2002 17:55:38 GMT

thanks everyone.. think I have what I need... did not think about NFS, but that should work fine