One related answer [tapes] (was: Two unrelated questions...)

On Saturday 24 January 2004 6:09 am, John Pettigrew wrote:

In a previous message, "Ken Schneider" wrote:

...

tar cvf /dev/st0 <somefile system> Will it only be accessible through tar?

No, there are other programs that will access the tape [taper comes to mind, as well as some commercial-class offerings like arkeia(*) -- I've used both under linux, with mixed results...]

He's keen to get at stuff he's put on the tapes in the past from Windows.

This is where you'll get stuck -- generally [so far as I know], tape formats are "proprietary" -- i.e., tapes stored with a particular backup program are only readable by that program; competitor programs won't read the tapes. You *may* have some success by running the windows-based archive program under "wine", or you may have to bite-the-bullet and go through this sequence: boot to windows [presuming a dual-boot system] restore a tape to a [temp] drive or partition [accessible to both OS's] boot to linux store a new tape from that temp partition lather, rinse, repeat... if the system isn't dual boot, but has network capability, you could do this over samba, or in the case of a program like arkeia, there is a network-capable windows client that will let you "back up" to a server (or locally, I suppose) and then, because it IS the same program, you could read the tapes under linux Tom (*) At one point, "the boxed set" of redhat software included this program [or perhaps even SuSE, like maybe 6.x?] but I think you can download a "two-client" version for free from them -- it has been a while since I've looked into this [but with a "drive problem" still in recent memory, I *really* need to rethink this... ;) ] -- Yet another Blog: http://osnut.homelinux.net