dump cmd fails after 20meg, can dd still read whats there?

[jerryk]

Hello,

We have an older linux box (rh7) that backs up using the "dump" cmd within flexbackup.

for the last 2 weeks, the dump of / has been failing after writing around 20 meg, and I didn't know it, until they deleted something big yesterday.

A friend suggested the "dd" cmd might read the 20meg that is there. Any chance he's right? are there any other tricks out there for reading what does exist on an incomplete tape?

Many thanks for any advice you can offer.

 

[jerryk]

Answered my own question.
dd bs=512k if=/dev/nst0 of=/tmp/restore

pulled the file to the hd. but the original dump cmd had a gzip option, so I had to zcat /tmp/restore > some-other-fname

Then "restore if someotherfname" let me scan whatever contents exitsted.

This was ugly, but a great exercise.