OK I finally figured out what I had to do.

When installing the tape drive through
# mkdev tape

I selected SCSI tape drive,
then the type I selected was: alad
this is the first thing on the list when you select "h" to view list.
I was in rule out mode and trying every single item in the list, and lucked out
when I selected the first one.

Then I determined that the SCSI Channel, ID settings, Lun # as such

0 0 3 0

3 being the SCSI ID setting.

Now I finally have communication with the tape drive. But..........

I insert tapes and it gives me blocksize=0

I also get some checksome errors as well sometimes.

In further research, it seems like I have to use a cleaning tape.

I will try this and then execute my tar commands.


thanks to all who have helped, or tried to help. It is greatly appreciated.

I will keep you posted on the rest of the project.

-jon

You realise that you are now the resident SCO expert...!

prowla, i sure as heck hope not, but thank you though.
As far as other progress on this project, i have to determine what was used to creat this backup.

was it cpio ? was it tar ?
im not sure but i will try them all and let you know.

if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to comment

also i have tried a few dd* commands but no luck


thanks again

You cannot restore the entire root file system. The disk controller driver is different, (scsi vs ide), you will end up with a system that will not boot.
When you find out the format of the tape, you will have to selectively restore any files that are in the root file system.
You may be better off to acquire another HP system with the same or similar (at least with the same RAID controller, the disk sizes don't matter so much) hardware configuration.

I actually restored the entire thing to the IDE drive. Sorry it took me a while to get back....

The whole (of the 2nd) problem was the tapes themself (of course after figuring out which driver to use for the SCSI Tape Drive). After digging and searching physically for more tapes, I ran
# tar xvf /dev/rct0
and BOOOOOM.......
the files started pouring out like no tomorrow.
After the reboot, it loaded right in like it was supposed to.
I actually logged in as the old sys admin login and password, and the
CMHC MIS system started right up.

However, you are correct in stating that a problem may occur. But here is the solution. I kept the default name of the SCO system during the initial installation.
When extracted the files, it tacked on myough.scosysv which then inturn made some minor problems because myough was the name of the old system. Since then, I have reinstalled and reconfigured down to the bone. I didn't know the name of the old system during the initial trials, but when i found out that it was myough, i renamed it to that, reinstalled the tape drive, ran tar xvf /dev/rct0, rebooted, and it works like a champ.

The problems i had before renaming and reinstalling the sys, were kernel issues. any config change that required a kernel relinking would show as a failure, but still work i.e. ip address config. I would go into netconfig, change IP, NETmask, etc, and then exit, when it would rebuild kernel it would fail, but i would reboot, and config changes stayed.
Thank you though for your concern and help. It is greatly appreciated.