I do not believe the tape is rewound before archiving, therefore it is
possible to archive to a previously written tape, ie put a new arhive 'on
the end' of an existing one. HOWEVER you would not be able to restore this
new archive !! as the restore process does rewind the tape.
It is not worth risking not being able to restore just for the sake of a few
pounds for a new tape !!!

Keith

-> -----Original Message-----
-> From: muratmy@freenet.de [mailto:muratmy@freenet.de]
-> Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 9:50 AM
-> To: informix-list@iiug.org
-> Subject: Does ontape rewind the Tape BEFORE archiving?
->
->
-> Hi,
-> Does ontape rewind the Tape BEFORE archiving?
-> Is it possible to "ontape" to a Tape already written with
-> "No rewind" option?
->

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sending to informix-list

Murat said

I thought it was a function of the tape device. Some are rewind some not.
We use  /dev/ntape/tape to not rewind and /dev/tape/tape to rewind

Colin Bull
c.bull@videonetworks.com
sending to informix-list

Ontape does not rewind the tape before starting unfortunately it does close and
reopen the tape device/file three times expecting that the tape will rewind
each time.  So using the norewind device will not work as the tape will be left
in the middle and not rewound so ontape will quite when it does not reread the
header page on reopening the tape.  You cannot either position the tape to say
file #2 and use the rewind device because the close will rewind the tape to the
beginning of the tape not the beginning of the file.  If you make archives to a
file other than the first one on a tape you will have to dd the file to the
beginning of another tape before you can restore the archive.

Art S. Kagel