TAR Error

[Harstad]

Hi

Doing a tar cvf /dev/st0 / ....give the following error:

tar: Can´t open device: No such device.

Could you please help me?

Than

[Mark Grant · Accepted solution]

It means that your tape drive isn't connected, there's no tape in it or it doesn't work. Look at the output of "dmesg" and see if /dev/st0 is actually being recognized.

[Steven E. Protter]

It also might mean there is no tape in the drive or its write protected.

tar defaults to the primary tape drive on mos systems.

Just in case you have the device wrong, try this:

tar cf /filelist

That might default and write to tape.

SEP

[Steven E. Protter]

Ooops on myu command

tar cv /filelist

10 lashes on my fingers with a wet noodle.

SEP

[Stuart Browne]

Actually, GNU tar will write to the STDOUT if you don't specify a 'file' (-f) for output.

You'll want to check with 'mt -f /dev/st0 status' to see if the tape is responding correctly.

If that comes back with an error, you might want to look in '/proc/scsi/scsi' to make sure a 'Sequential-Access' device is listed.

If that fails, then as Mark suggested, check the 'dmesg' command (and if you have one, /var/log/dmesg).