On Thu, Jul 2, 2026 at 10:18 AM Dennis Boone via cctalk < [email protected]> wrote:
> > But when I try to actually read a tape I get errors > > Here are examples of the tape read commands, there are many variations > one > > can try: > > dd if=/dev/nst0 of=block1.bin > > dd if=dev/nst0 of /dev/null bs=1024 > > etc > > > I would open a 2nd window and run the following command to view the > system > > messages while the dd program is running > > dmesg | tail -50 > > result example: > > [ 1802.404408] st0: Failed to read 1326 byte block with 1024 byte > transfer. > > [ 1813.881884] st0: Failed to read 3846 byte block with 1024 byte > transfer > > Two things: > > 1. If you `setblk 0` and use a large enough ibs= with dd, it'll read > variable block sizes just fine. > > 2. DON'T ARCHIVE VARIABLE BLOCKED TAPES WITH DD!!!! It throws away > information. Use a tool that preserves the block sizes. E.g.: > > https://github.com/brouhaha/tapeutils > > De > I totally agree with all of your thoughts here. My experiments were to try to get some reads first then try tapeutils. setblk 0 does not work in this case. If I can't even get out of the starting gate to read *anything* then I think I need a new drive. I am happy to be proven wrong but I think I will try another drive. Bill
