Tape duplication

[Ken Smith_2]

I want to make backup copies of my software tapes. They are in 4mm DDS format and one is a bootable tape. I have two 4mm drives connected to my system. What are the commands to do this?

[Marissa Gloria-Ringor]

We're using this program though no guarantee, just try it yourself. Pls take note that this is tape to tape copy, so it should be on the same capacity. Good luck

? ./tape_copy ?
This program is supplied and should only be used on the understanding
that there is NO support or liability on the part of Hewlett-Packard.
You should therefore NOT rely on the copied tapes being correct.
You use this at your own risk!
Usage ./tape_copy input_mag_tape output_mag_tape

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Ken:

Try this:

# dd if=/dev/rmt/0m of=/dev/rmt/1m

...JRF...

[Andreas Voss]

Hi,

for your bootable tape (i guess you have used Ignite/UX make_tape_recovery) you can use the command

/opt/ignite/bin/copy_boot_tape

(see man 'copy_boot_tape')
to duplicate the tape.

For other tapes you could use the dd command ie:

dd if=/dev/rmt/0m of=/dev/rmt/1m bs=10k

Regards

[Vincenzo Restuccia]

A tape created with make_recovery contains two tape "files": a 2KB LIF file and a 10KB tar archive. If you have two tape drives on a system, you can easily duplicate the tapes using two dd commands with a no-rewind-on-close device file for the first command. For example:
dd if=/dev/rmt/0mn of=/dev/rmt/1mn bs=2k dd if=/dev/rmt/0m of=/dev/rmt/1m bs=10k

If you only have one tape drive, and have enough disk space to hold the contents of both tape files, use something like this4:

dd if=/dev/rmt/0mn of=/var/tmp/f1 bs=2k dd if=/dev/rmt/0m of=/var/tmp/f2 bs=10k

(Insert blank tape now)

dd if=/var/tmp/f1 of=/dev/rmt/0mn bs=2k dd if=/var/tmp/f2 of=/dev/rmt/0m bs=10k

Also see the copy_boot_tape (1M) manpage.