Finding out archive format of dat tape ??

[omars]

Hi ,
I have several dat tapes and it
contains an archive of softwares .

Question is how to find the type of archive ? Is it swinstall,dd,frecover,pax,tar ,cpio ,dump ???

Hope u all can help me .

Thanks.

[malay boy]

uhm!!this what I normally do (*non* professional way),may be others have more great idea.

I take the tape and test whether the tar,frecover able to read it.

For example:

I will do : tar -tvf /dev/rmt/0mn

if this cannot , it's mean that not backup using tar

next I will do

frecover -x -f /dev/rmt/0mn -I /tmp/index

check whether can read or not.

And goes on for others ....

Simple method ? Other guru's will help you..

still learning,
mB

[Michael Tully]

There is no way to actually tell, although pax can read both cpio and tar created tapes. You can only do with trial and error method. Make sure that the drive your using to read the tape is compatible.
e.g.
a 150M DDS cannot be read on a DDS 3 tape drive, a tape created on a DLT8000 cannot be read on a DLT7000 drive.

[T G Manikandan]

check this link

http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x996d37f45ef7d4118fef0090279cd0f9,00.html

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

Simplest way to get a clue is to do

# dd if=/dev/rmt/0m ibs=204800 of=xx count=1
# file xx

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

[omars]

Hi
after doing
dd if=/dev/rmt/0m of=xx ibs=24... count=1 and then doing
file xx , gives me lif .

Does it mean its a bootable tapes .?

[H.Merijn Brand (procura]

yes.

# lifls
USAGE: lifls [-C -l -i -v -L -b BlockList] volname[:filename]

See also lifcp lifinit lifls lifrename lifrm

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn