More comments about copying HP-written tapes:

If you are dealing with tapes that use ANSI, ISO, or IBM file and label
standards, when two consecutive tape marks are encountered, that is
always the end of the volume. Any trailer labels will always contain
80-bytes each.

For HP-written tapes, two consecutive tape marks do not necessarily
denote the end of the volume. Also, the trailer label(s) may contain 128
bytes.

What I am trying to say is that you have be certain that any copy
utility that you use must be able to deal with the subtleties of the HP
formats.

Bill

BILL R. King, PE
Data Recovery International
2621 Brookridge Drive
Hurst, TX, 76054  USA

Tel 817-281-8901
Fax 817-656-0079

http://www.datarecover.com
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[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> We use StorageTek tape mechs to do our backups. A tape supplier
> recently told us we had received a "bad" batch of tapes. Unfortunately
> we had some in service and there are long term archive files on them.
> In order to replace them I must copy them. I have looked at TAPECOPY
> but it dates from 1983 and the classic systems and I don't think it
> will work. I have tried TCOPY from the TELESUP account and it failed.
> Doing a RESTORE/STORE is not possible. Some of these tapes are part of
> multi tape STORE sets. My current efforts are directed at using the
> POSIX shell. Create a link file with the mknod command for each drive
> and then use the dd command in an attempt to copy from one to the
> other. I would appreciate any other suggestions or help. We have close
> to 30 tapes to copy.
>
> Regards
> Chester Copeland
>         'The time has come,' the Walrus said,
>           'To talk of many things:
>         Of shoes--and ships--and sealing wax--
>           Of cabbages--and kings--
>         And why the sea is boiling hot--
>           And whether pigs have wings.'      Lewis Carroll (1832-98)