A big Thank-You goes out to the list. I finally got tar to restore from a DLT tape. The problem I had was that I need to rewind more than what was originally thought; for example after the tar -tf it is necessary to rewind to do a file restore from the tape, that was one of the biggest hurdles. It now makes perfect sense although at the time I was left wondering why can tar list the files on the DLT tape but not restore any of them. =20 Here is the basic procedure: dd if=3D/dev/zero of=3D/dev/st0 count=3D1 bs=3D32768 <-- This erases the d= ata on the tape device /dev/st0 tar -cf /dev/nst0 /directory.to.be.backedup/ <-- This backs up a given directory mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind <-- This rewinds the tape=20 tar -tf /dev/nst0 <-- This tells you what is on the tape mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind <-- This rewinds the tape=20 tar -xvf /dev/st0 deleteme/test1 <--This restores file test1 to the current working directory =09 Jim :) =20 On Fri, 2003-08-15 at 00:50, der.hans wrote: > Am 13. Aug, 2003 schw=E4tzte Jim so: >=20 > > "tar -tf /dev/nst0" finally worked results below, altough I still can > > not restore from the tape. Also what is wierd is that I do some > > commands like tar and cpio and then I start getting I/O error messages = I > > wait a while sometimes only minutes usually longer and then the command= s > > work sucsessfully. Is the problem that the tape is still working on > > completeing one command and now I just gave it another but it is not > > done with the first? >=20 > It sounds like there's still something wrong with your SCSI environment. >=20 > I think you said you fixed a termination error to get this far. >=20 > Can you change cables? >=20 > If you don't have a spare let me know what you need on either end and I c= an > probably loan you a cable. >=20 > > Well below is a sucsessful "tar -tf /dev/nst0" with the results the onl= y > > problem is that I did not know the syntax that cpio wanted when I was > > restoring for device name/filename and then it finally brought up an I/= O > > when I typed in just the device name. > > > > > > Do I need to rewind the tape before I can restore from it? >=20 > When using /dev/nst0 you need to rewind. I know it seems like more work, = but > it has been my experience that you're better off using the non-rewind dev= ice > and having to rewind by hand. >=20 > mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind > mt -f /dev/nst0 status > mt -f /dev/nst0 tell > mt -f /dev/nst0 fsf > mt -f /dev/nst0 status > mt -f /dev/nst0 tell >=20 > If you've got a backup on the tape that second tell should give you a > non-zero number. >=20 > When doing a status you're generally only concerned with the last line > that's all in capital letters. >=20 >=20 > mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind > tar cf /dev/nst0 /etc > mt -f /dev/nst0 tell > mt -f /dev/nst0 rewind > tar tf /dev/nst0 | tee /tmp/tape.toc > mt -f /dev/nst0 tell >=20 > Both of those tells should report the same place. You should get a file > listing for /etc in /tmp/tape.toc. >=20 > ciao, >=20 > der.hans