Restoring a multi-volume Tar archive from tape

[Ted Ellis_2]

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...

[A. Clay Stephenson]

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.

[Martin Johnson]

Try pax (/usr/bin/pax).

HTH
Marty

[Ted Ellis_2]

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.

[Hai Nguyen_1]

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

[Ted Ellis_2]

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?

[A. Clay Stephenson]

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

[Ted Ellis_2]

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