cache a tape drive to windows 7 tape drive

[Tom Goldberg]

As I have posted elsewhere in this forum, Cache-A tar tape format description and instructions for reading can be found at https://tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-ReadCAtar.pdf. You will need to use a tar tool that lets you specify the blocking factor as 300 as described in this paper.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net

[Enrique Sambile]

Thanks for the reply tom goldenberg

we already use some of tar tools but we cant extract the files on LTO tape

when we insert the LTO tape on tapedrive it will read as an unformatted cartridge but if we use a blank tape

it will read as an LTFS format we have a lot of LTO tape that was burn on Prime cache-a using tar format

any suggestion on how we can retrieve our files by not using that prime cache-a?

thanks in advance

[Tom Goldberg]

Sorry Enrique,

I can’t really understand quite what your issue is from your description, but my guess is that you installed the LTFS software and are expecting it to read tar tapes – that won’t work.

You need to use something that can read tar tapes – any linux system will do it – if your Cache-A UI isn’t working, the linux system behind it may still be and you can use a command line to access that per my posted doc at https://www.tomgoldberg.net/Cache-A/CATechBrief-CommandLine.pdf and the aforementioned doc on reading CA tar tapes. If the Cache-A is not an option, any linux system with an attached LTO drive would work the same way.

Many posters on this forum have solutions that will un-tar a tape on Macs (like Bru and YoYotta). I’m no expert on windows solutions but there is lot’s of advice on it on the web, such as https://wiki.haskell.org/How_to_unpack_a_tar_file_in_Windows. This author says that 7zip should work which you say you’ve tried – maybe between his instructions and our tech brief you can make that work.

I hope this helps, good luck.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net

[Randy Caparas]

hi Tom Goldberg,
this the example photo of our problem
there our tape inserted in tape drive, and its been created in cache a as tar format,
but when we try put the lto tape that been created in cache a, in windows 7 Unformatted Catridge that it show,

any idea? or there’s a software or drive our needed?
thanks
pls see image
0_lto222.jpg

[Randy Caparas]

sorry the image si not load
pls see this

[Randy Caparas]

im using LTFS Configurator for windows to mount the tape drive,
just wondering if there any software TAR Configurator for windows to mount tape drive as TAR?
thanks

[Tom Goldberg]

As I already wrote “you installed the LTFS software and are expecting it to read tar tapes – that won’t work”

Tapes written with tar do not present as volumes – you have to un-tar them onto a volume. Please read the tar references I provided.

Tom Goldberg
TGCS
30201 Rainbow Hill Rd.
Evergreen, CO 80439
mailto:tomgoldberg@gmail.com
https://tomgoldberg.net