The information for the index is not available until the end, since file order on tape is dynamic depending on what actually works and in what order it completes.
Ie: when amanda starts writing it writes a zero filled 32k block to the second file and when its finshed doing all the work put a file in there containing Tapes (in general) do not work this way; you can't write at thbe beginning without trashing the rest. Now, if you used a DECtape, you could, since they have a formatting track that is not rewritten normally, but they are only 184 KW (12 bit words). (You can even swap to DECtape - I've seen this and it's amazingly cool, but a bit slow.) But seriously, I'm not aware of modern tapes with such a formatting track - DDS certainly doesn't have it. (If it did, the capacity would be known precisely, but it would be lower.) See http://www.pdp8.net/tu56/tu56.shtml if you are into retrocomputing for info about this tape drive. But seriously: What I would do is to simply read the entire tape, one file at a time, and store it on a big disk. If I don't have amanda, it usually means my backup server is hosed, so I want to get the bits off tape onto a second place the _very first time_ the head passes over them, since you never know how many passes you'll get before failure. I'm just being paranoid, but this is a Murphy's Law sort of situation. -- Greg Troxel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
