Exabytes and dumpsets

[George Robbins]

In article <11376 at trlsasb.oz> gilmour at trlsasb.oz (John Gilmour) writes:
> We've been experiencing difficulities with file positioning when trying to 
> restore files from an Exabyte connected to a vax3600 running ULTRIX 2.2.
> The restore program can't seem to position itself correctly on
> a dumpset that is positioned past the 3rd dumpset to have been written 
> to the tape; for example when i do a "/etc/restore ivfs /dev/nrmt1h 5" it 
> either tells me to mount a second volume or returns with an i/o error. 

This is probably a controller/emulation problem, rather than an Ultrix
problem.  How is the Exabyte drive attached to the 3600?

You might try using the "mt fsf" command as an alternate way of positioning
the tape and see if that works or results in the same kinds of errors.  If
this fails maybe try "dd if=/dev/rmt.. of=/dev/null files=n" to "read" the
prior files as way of skipping...

We had similar problems on an Exabyte and eventually had to give up
trying to write multi-file tapes.

Someone I think was hinting at writing multiple tape marks between files.
This might help, but I think it might make getting to the right file on
a restore a rather interesting venture.

-- 
George Robbins - now working for,	uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: cbmvax!grr at uunet.uu.net
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)