Reading an unknown DAT Tape
This is a case of idle curiosity and not an urgent need to recover a valuable backup. I found an old DAT tape and attempted to read it on the very drive that probably once wrote it and it appears to read the tape properly in that I can use dd to copy it to a file and mt fsf 5, for example, takes the tape to the fifth file marker so there is sanity. Tar, however, does not recognize the format of the archive so it is either something proprietary or I am not using the correct utility on it. I opened it with dd files=2 if=/dev/sa0 of=testfile and then did the strings utility on testfile and got: TAPE SSET VOLB DIRB NACL Setting security iles SPAD DIRB NACL Setting security on system files... SPAD DIRB NACL SPAD DIRB NACL SPAD FILE NACL STAN Jun 23 2003 12:00AM Jan 1 1900 8:45AM Jan 1 1900 9:00AM Note that we are obviously able to read data from the tape as the top few lines are readible as words. The time stamps at the bottom are possibly not time stamps as some of them are not plausible. The dd command never faltered with errors although I did finally stop it manually. Is there any FreeBSD utility that can tell more about what created the original archive? Thank you. Martin McCormick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reading an unknown DAT Tape
On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 03:17:05PM -0500, Martin McCormick wrote: This is a case of idle curiosity and not an urgent need to recover a valuable backup. I found an old DAT tape and attempted to read it on the very drive that probably once wrote it and it appears to read the tape properly in that I can use dd to copy it to a file and mt fsf 5, for example, takes the tape to the fifth file marker so there is sanity. Tar, however, does not recognize the format of the archive so it is either something proprietary or I am not using the correct utility on it. I opened it with dd files=2 if=/dev/sa0 of=testfile and then did the strings utility on testfile and got: TAPE SSET VOLB DIRB NACL Setting security iles SPAD DIRB NACL Setting security on system files... SPAD DIRB NACL SPAD DIRB NACL SPAD FILE NACL STAN Jun 23 2003 12:00AM Jan 1 1900 8:45AM Jan 1 1900 9:00AM I wondered about it being a dump(8) file, but just tried one and strings output looked a little different. How about a db of some sort or a log from some lab test? jerry Note that we are obviously able to read data from the tape as the top few lines are readible as words. The time stamps at the bottom are possibly not time stamps as some of them are not plausible. The dd command never faltered with errors although I did finally stop it manually. Is there any FreeBSD utility that can tell more about what created the original archive? Thank you. Martin McCormick ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reading an unknown DAT Tape
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On 03/15/2012 14:02, Jerry McAllister wrote: On Thu, Mar 15, 2012 at 03:17:05PM -0500, Martin McCormick wrote: This is a case of idle curiosity and not an urgent need to recover a valuable backup. I found an old DAT tape and attempted to read it on the very drive that probably once wrote it and it appears to read the tape properly in that I can use dd to copy it to a file and mt fsf 5, for example, takes the tape to the fifth file marker so there is sanity. Tar, however, does not recognize the format of the archive so it is either something proprietary or I am not using the correct utility on it. I opened it with dd files=2 if=/dev/sa0 of=testfile and then did the strings utility on testfile and got: TAPE SSET VOLB DIRB NACL Setting security iles SPAD DIRB NACL Setting security on system files... SPAD DIRB NACL SPAD DIRB NACL SPAD FILE NACL STAN Jun 23 2003 12:00AM Jan 1 1900 8:45AM Jan 1 1900 9:00AM I wondered about it being a dump(8) file, but just tried one and strings output looked a little different. How about a db of some sort or a log from some lab test? jerry Note that we are obviously able to read data from the tape as the top few lines are readible as words. The time stamps at the bottom are possibly not time stamps as some of them are not plausible. The dd command never faltered with errors although I did finally stop it manually. Is there any FreeBSD utility that can tell more about what created the original archive? Thank you. Martin McCormick A quick check of Google with the strings you dumped points at Microsoft Tape format. Possibly from the win2k utility. -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v2.0.18 (FreeBSD) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAk9iW/QACgkQrDN5kXnx8yYRawCePDzWmtZaHrvB1jq3gY3BS96f dvUAnRvBdclM3E0+WDus0dNlPVuN1ELD =p5oa -END PGP SIGNATURE- ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
Re: Reading an unknown DAT Tape
On Mar 15, 2012, at 1:17 PM, Martin McCormick wrote: I opened it with dd files=2 if=/dev/sa0 of=testfile and then did the strings utility on testfile and got: What does file testfile think? (od -ax on the first part of the file might be informative, also.) Regards, -- -Chuck ___ freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions To unsubscribe, send any mail to freebsd-questions-unsubscr...@freebsd.org
