UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Does anyone know the UNIX command to view and/or erase data that is on an 8-track tape? Thanks for your help! Linda

thats kind of a wide angled question.

1) what command was the data written with?
2) what OS was used?

Thanks for your help! Wow what a quick response! Well, I don't know what command that data was written with and I can't be sure about the OS on them. You see we have about 150 8-track tapes that we don't use, they have been in our computer room for years and the purchasing department wants to send them to auction. I work for the local government and we don't throw anything away - we sell it. Before the tapes can be sent to auction I need to make sure all data has been erased. I was thinking if there was a command in UNIX that would allow me to view the contents of the tape and then erase it. Or even view the data and move it elsewhere. Thanks, Linda

the only problem i see with what your trying to do is you dont know the command that wrote to the tape if anything is on them at all.

We make it a pollicy to not toss anything out for at least 1-1.5 years after it is no longer in use. IE tapes. then we send them to a disposale company that specializes in destroying data. I would just say hey have a bon fire one night. Used tapes wont bring much if anything in an auction.


if your on a solaris machine you can try the erase command.

Code:

man mt


NAME
     mt - control magnetic tape drive operation

SYNOPSIS
     mt [-V] [-f device]  [--file=device]  [--version]  operation
     [count]

Misc. Reference Manual Pages
erase
          Erase the tape.

If you just want to erase the data:

dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/tape obs=x


Where x is the capacity of your tape in bytes. If you don't have /dev/random on your system (such as HP-UX), use /dev/null instead.

OS: Tru64 Unix - Ver 4.0f - DEC 3000(M800).

When I tried to erase some tapes (std DDS(1) 125) on a newly reinstalled OS with the following command ...

# mt -f /dev/nrmt0h erase

And returned the following error ...

Dev erase 1 failed - no such device or address

Little confused as we (myself and a college) were able to vdump the contents of the /var directory to tape with success.

Any suggestions ??? Will try the dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/tape obs=x in the meantime.

Hi again,

Tried : dd if=/dev/null of=/dev/tape obs=516 with no success.

Contents of the tape could still be read.

Any other suggestions to erasing the tape??