[Info-vax] Backup TK50 tapes

[Stephen Hoffman]

On 2013-02-23 15:16:11 +0000, supervinx said:

> Before any misunderstanding will occur...
> Together with a VAX4000/300 I rescued some original TK50 tapes.
> They contain VMS 5.5, 5.5-1 and they seem not to contain any saveset, but only
> *.EXE files (VMB.EXE, SYSBOOT.EXE...) so they looks like bootable tapes.
> Am I wrong?
> Since I never installed VMS except from a CD, I'm dubious about boot tapes.


Presuming you have the necessary permission to replicate these files, 
you can MOUNT the magtapes Files-11 (not /FORIEGN), extract the OpenVMS 
VAX installation files — the .A, .B, .C, etc. saveset files that are 
after all the OpenVMS VAX baggage needed for a sequential OpenVMS VAX 
bootstrap — with DCL commands including COPY, and then transfer those 
files to the target system via LD, done.

You'll generally find VMS055.A, .B, .C and such, and — if it's a 
"remastered" kit — VMSU1055.A, .B, .C.

Since you probably won't want to discard those tapes without additional 
details, the OpenVMS VAX installation kit files contain all of the 
files used in the tape bootstrap, as the tape bootstrap uses a subset 
of OpenVMS VAX.  Which means with those saveset files — if you ever 
need to build a bootable software installation kit on magtape media — 
and aren't simply going to install these versions of OpenVMS by booting 
from a bootable disk and performing a more standard installation — then 
we can discuss how to reconstitute a bootable installation kit from the 
installation kit saveset files and from the integrated tools including 
STABACKIT.

Last time I did a dd with a tape — which was admittedly a very, very 
long time ago, as serious use of bootable tape media has been shunned 
for years — it didn't deal at all well with the differing block sizes, 
which caused all sorts of problems when replicating the media.   I 
don't know of an automatic tool to do that, other than rebuilding the 
kit as DEC VMS engineering once did, with the various tools in OpenVMS.

But maybe we discuss that bootable-tape-stuff later...


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