[TriLUG] retrieving a tar from tape

[Byarlay, Wayne A.]

I replied to all of your messages here.

>This is why the directory where you create the archive from is very
important - it will be extracted to the same path. 
This is true for all but the initial "/" if you use an absolute path -
it is removed (i.e. 
made relative) by default

Aha... did not understand that... so it's going to extract to the
original location, not the "current" location? OK.

>Did you try extracting the tar and have a problem?  If so, we'll need
the details.

Yes, I tried; the tape spun, and it waited and did not give any error.
But the -v option never echoed any filenames or gave any indication that
it was retreiving files from the archive. I CTRL+C'd it after about 20
minutes, because I was not seeing any filenames getting restored.

>GNU tar prompts for the 2nd tape?

GNU tar, I don't know; whatever comes with RH9. I did not make it far
enough to get to the 2nd tape... so the multi-volume was not an issue.

>tar -xvMf /dev/st0 That should work. You said you tried 'tar -xv -f
/dev/st0', but you didn't say what the results were. >Did it give an
error? Did the tape spin, but nothing extracted? 

That's pretty much what happened.

> I think you just left out the 'M', which according to the man page is
for creating AND extracting multivolume archives.

Well, then, maybe that's the problem! I'll try it. Thanks!

WAB