trouble with tar

[wahooguy]

I have an HP JetStore 2000 DAT drive installed in an HP Vectra VE 6/333 running Red Hat 6.0. The DAT drive is recognized and works fine as /dev/st0. I can write, list, and extract archived files when I use the tar command.<br>
However, I have a tape with a tar file on it with unknown parameters, ie blocking factor, original system files were on, etc. I have tried numerous ways to simply list the files with no success. For example, I have tried changing the blocking factor using tar -tf /dev/st0 -b N, using 0 to 35 for N. I have also tried other tar options listed in the man pages to no avail.<br>
Is there any way for me to extract this information from the tape??

 

[jamesh]

Is that 'f' (this file) flag correct? In the above example you show a device as a file.<br>
<br>
I've not used tape on Linux but with SCO, you link the tape device to the default tar device and extract with tar -xv.<br>
<br>
Hope this helps (and is relevent

 

[AndyBo]

Looks like a missing option. You need to use the "v" for "verbose" option to get the listing to your screen. Don't worry about the blocking factor. Past experience has shown tar to be good at working out the blocking factor of an archive it is reading. (May be held in the tar header on the tape, or something.)<br>
<br>
Anyway, change your command to something like:<br>
<br>
tar -tvf /dev/st0<br>
<br>
and you should be ok.