Copying SunOS distribution tapes

[MIKE at UCDHEP.BITNET]

I manage six Sun computers in the Physics Dept. on this campus.  The
department benefits from an umbrella license obtained by the University
for Sun systems.  I.e., the campus has a license for SunOS for several
hundred systems, and individual licenses are given out on a
first-come-first-served basis.

Unfortunately for me, most Sun systems on this campus have 1/4" tape
drives, so our standard distribution tapes from Sun come in this format.
I say this is unfortunate because this department has only a 1/2",
9-track, reel-to-reel tape drive.  Hence, when a new version of SunOS
becomes available, I have to request the loan of a tape from the local Sun
sales office.

While the Sun sales people are cooperative, it still takes from one to
several days for me to get the tape.  If, for example, I need to boot Unix
from a distribution tape, in order to restore a damaged root filesystem, I
need the tape immediately, not in a day or two.

Hence, I'd like to do what seems to me to be the obvious thing, namely,
just copy the 1/4" tape to a 1/2" tape compatible with my drive.  I've
asked people around here who are more knowledgeable than I about SunOS if
that were possible.  The general sense of the replies is ``it's possible
in principle but not easy to do'', for reasons which are vague, at least
to me.

It seems that this shouldn't be a hard problem: read physical records from
the tape on a system with a 1/4" drive, store uninterpreted on disk, copy
the disk files to the system with the 1/2" drive, and write physical
records to the tape.  (Disk space could, of course, be a problem.)

So what is the opinion of the Sun Spots community?  Can I do this?  Any
opinions, conjectures, advice, RTFM's, etc., will be greatly appreciated.

Mike Hannon                              mike at ucdhep     (Bitnet)
ucdhep::mike          (HEPnet)           42385::mike     (HEPnet)
jmhannon at ucdavis.edu  (Internet)         916-752-4966    (Telephone)