help with tar on SGI 1/4" tape drive

[Dave Olson]

In <1991Jan16.001634.9049 at news.arc.nasa.gov> mwilson at max.arc.nasa.gov (Michael A. Wilson) writes:
| 
| I have a bit of a problem concerning 1/4" tapes written with tar:
| 
|    I have a tape that has been overwritten.  The user had created a tar
|    archive tape previously.  He created a new directory
|    and then typed "tar cv" instead of "tar xv", so he has destroyed at
|    least the first 400 blocks of the archive.  Is there any way to extract
|    the rest of the archive?
| 
|    I have tried to get past this first tar block by using dd.  The problem
|    is that I get an end of media after 400 blocks, and I don't seem to
|    be able to get beyond it using dd.
| 
|    any and all help would be appreciated.  I am using an SGI 4D240S with
|    IRIX 3.3.

Sorry, but the QIC drive specs allow no way to get past the EOD.  You
are out of luck (it isn't an issue with the tape driver, but rather
with the drive firmware and hardware).