Another question may be... "Do you still have the equipment to run the
old tapes?  What about the software?"

GT

Graham Kitchen
Corporate Records Manager
Unified Western Grocers
5200 Sheila Street
Commerce, California 90040
Telephone:  (323)264-5200 Extension 4560
Cell:  (323)243-1865
email:  [log in to unmask] 

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Records Management Program 
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Gerard J. Nicol
> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 1:40 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: what's on those tapes
> 
> William,
> 
> It would depend on what system the tapes originated.
> 
> If they come from an IBM like system (S390, OS400) or even an IBM like
> system such as FACOM or Tandem there is a good chance that 
> the tapes are
> "Standard label" tapes.
> 
> In this case the tapes should have headers before each file that would
> indicate information such as creation date and the first 17 
> bytes of a data
> set name. To dump the headers most systems have some sort of tapemap
> program.
> 
> If the tapes have come from an "open" systems platform such 
> as one of the
> UNIXs there is a good chance they are in tar format which has 
> not changed
> significantly in decades. If this is the case you can run tar 
> to dump the
> filenames (and possibly some other attributes) for the data 
> on the tape.
> 
> If the tapes were written on a Windows system, or from a 
> backup system on
> UNIX (such as TSM, Networker et al) you will have to see if 
> the system used
> has a way of mapping the tape.
> 
> If you can identify the platform(s) more specifically I can 
> probably provide
> more information.
> 
> Once you establish what is on the tape, getting it off the 
> tape might be
> another story in itself.
> 
> Gerard
> 
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> 

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