Mounting a Tape (repost)

[Lawrence V. Cipriani]

In article <302 at hrc.UUCP> dan at hrc.UUCP (Dan Troxel VP) writes:
>
>How do I mount a file system on a REEL-to-REEL tape on Unix 5.2?
>I am using an S-640 from Convergent.
>Dan Troxel VP of Computer Operations @ 

Unless your operating system is seriously broken you should be
able to use /etc/mount as if you wanted to mount a disk:

	mount /dev/device /directory

where /dev/device is a block device name for the tape unit at the
appropriate density, and /directory is a mount point.  Try a device
that gives you rewind first, if that doesn't work try one with no
rewind.

Mount accepts *any block device*, not just disks.  This form of access
is very slow, but should work.

If there is more than one file system on the disk you'll have to
skip past the ones at the beginning.

If instead you want to put the contents of the tape onto disk,
just mount the tape (physically!) on the tape unit, and use a
command like dd (I am not familiar with S-640) to read the tape
and write it to disk.  This is probably what you really need to do
but you didn't say why you wanted to mount a tape.

Hope this helps,

-- 
Larry Cipriani, AT&T Network Systems, Columbus OH, (614) 860-4999