[ale] 8mm Sun Tar on tape

[Curtis Smith]

> I have an 8mm tape that is supposed to be a tar from a Sun system.
> When I run
> "mt -f /dev/st1 status" it tells me that the block size is 1024 so I
> use the
> following command to read the tap, "tar -b 2 -tf /dev/st1" but I still
> get a
> tape read error.  Any suggestions?
> 
It's too bad, that it's a little known fact that the helical scan tape
devices (4mm and 8mm)
have a frequency of not writing tapes that are portable between devices.
This is due
to the very compilicated mechanical nature of the drive and the wear and
tear and 
inter device alignment drifts over time.

8mm is the worst for lack of interdrive exchangeability.

Both technologies (8mm being the worst) also suffer from short tape
shelf life, until
the tape is no longer reliably readable.

Trade mags for the Mag. media industry rate 8mm at 1yr shelf life, 4mm
at 2yr, 
QIC at 5yr and DLT at 10yr.

Most probably your tape is just not written aligned with your
transport's alignment, iff that
is the tape has'nt started to forget it's contents....

My guess, is that you're SOL. 

Good luck.

curt