Re: SAVLIB tape copy and/or converting tape backup to SAVF

It would be hard to mangle it into a savf, because savf's have checksums
in each 528-byte record (512 bytes data, 4 byte binary RRN, and 12 byte
checksum). There are no checksums on tape, so you'd have to calculate
them yourself--which is not impossible (a REXX pgm to do it was once
posted in the MI400 list) but it's not trivial.

I think it would be easier to get the file into a physical file in the
format used by the DUPTAPIN TAATOOL, then use the DUPTAPOUT TAATOOL (or
equivalent) to write that to tape in legitimate *SAVRST format. Then
you could restore normally.

DUPTAPIN copies the tape file into a physical file with a 32,762-byte
record length, which has a 2-byte binary block length, followed by up to
32,760 bytes of the tape block data. The original TAATOOLs used PL/I
pgms to read and write the tape, but there are RPG IV replacements for
them here: (thanks Martin!)

http://dbg400.net/download/duptap.txt

(For a chuckle, they're also here:)

http://www.splash.it/computer/as400/AS400/DUPTAP.txt.htm

A couple of questions:

1. How big is the file? If it's small enough to email, you could email
it to me and I'll try to extract the library. Though if it contains
proprietary data, you might not want to send it to a stranger :-)

2. Can you post what you see when you do DSPPFM on the copied physical
file using F10=Hex? Just the first screen or two.

--Dave

David C. Shea wrote:

A friend of mine has a savlib backup tape that he converted from one media type to SLR5 using a PC tape copying gizmo called NovaExchange. I can see that the library is there, but something is different about the tape such that the AS400 doesn't think it's a save file.

I have tried a few things like doing a CPYFRMTAP as a tape file to see if I could mangle the thing into a SAVF. I can DSPPFM the copied file and see things that LOOK like a savf might, but no dice.

The tape is ebcdic. The block size is 32768. The record length of the converted tape is not 0 as it should be, but 32768.

A 'save file' has a record length of 528...

I'm just scratching the surface here. Has anyone ever offloaded a savlib backup and mangled it into a save file?



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