In article <Da0ooB1w164w@owl.isis.org> doug@owl.isis.org (Douglas W Murray) writes:
quoted text
>Hi all... Me again...
>
>Has anyone been able to do a multivolume tar format backup to diskettes?
>I tried it tonight but I wasnt at the end of the first diskette that 
>TAR got to the /dev directory and hung there.  I presume that the hang
>is due to the backup of the /dev files, but this didnt allow me to test
>the multi-volume situation.
>
>Could anyone enlighten me on how to go about in doing backups to t
>diskettes (preferably with TAR) but I do think that (if memory serves
>me right) only cpio is capable of backing up device files.
>
>Any thoughts on this?
>
>Doug!


  I suspect that you are using tar from the Rootdisk.  (Linked to pax.)
The problem is that the PAX is expecting a certain signal to signal
the end of a diskette (ENOSP?).  This is not getting sent, and so it sits, 
trying to write to the diskette, getting 0 back from write, but ignoring 
this.... forever.  I have a fix around here, somewhere, but not
here right now.  If people decide that they want to be perverse about it,
and not use floptools, I can hunt up the patch.   I have told Jim 
Winstead about it, but lacked the confidence that I had the source
of the problem understood to decide that it was a problem with the 
floppy driver (ie kernel), to actually send in a bug report, so I passed
the buck to someone who I perceive as more knowledgable than I.  I then 
decided it was taken care of, and left it.  Is it?
-- 
 -Chris Maxwell               
[ maxwell@ug.cs.dal.ca (dalcsug.bitnet)  /  01max@ac.dal.ca (dalac.bitnet) ]
                                         | My employers might not think as I
"Rise up and throw down your oppressed!" | Do.