Copyright (C) 2008 STROMASYS SA (former Software Resources International SA)

MTD application release notes, July 2008.

MTD is a command line utility (available for Windows XP, Windows 
Server 2003, and Linux) designed to exchange data between CHARON-VAX 
tape container files and physical magnetic tapes, preserving tape 
record size and other tape structure information. It is intendend to 
simplify data transfer between CHARON-VAX and hardware VAX, and it 
allows to restore VAX/VMS backup tape to a CHARON-VAX container file.

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How to use.

To copy a tape into a container file:
MTD <tape-drive> <container-file> [options]

To copy a tape container file to a physical tape:
MTD <container-file> <tape-drive>

<tape-drive> stands for an existing tape device available for read/write
operations (i.e. loaded and properly mounted) and <container-file> stands
for the name of the file that must be created.

Available options:
/log=<file name> 
To store application log at the specifyed file

/reads=<number> 
Specify the number of attempts to read the damaged data block

/ignore
Try to ignore the bad blocks and continue execution (in case of non-fatal error)

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Note that the Windows operating system handles only those tape drives which
have been properly installed and with started drivers. All modern tape drives
have such drivers, but some old devices (especially SCSI-I tape drives)
do not have drivers for the Windows operating system. Since such older tape
drives are common on MicroVAX systems, the MTD utility can work without
Windows drivers; it implements the SCSI protocol and commands directly
the SCSI Port driver.

If the tape device you use has an installed driver, you address it in MTD
with its Windows device name: \\.\tapeN where N is a unique number assigned
by its loaded driver. If the tape device has no driver installed,
MTD can address the SCSI tape drive directly as follows:
\\.\SCSI<scsi-port>:<scsi-bus>:<scsi-id>Where:<scsi-port> stands for the
number assigned by the Windows operating system to the controller to which
the tape drive is connected, <scsi-bus> stands for the SCSI bus path ID to
which the tape drive is connected (usually 0),and <scsi-id> stands for
SCSI ID of the tape drive.

In Windows NT4 these three parameters can be determined from the
Control Panel/SCSI Adapters applet.

In Windows 2000 and Windows XP the <scsi-port> number must be obtained from
the registry "HKEY_Local_Machine\Hardware\Devicemap\Scsi" key.

The other two parameters can be obtained in Windows 2000 and Windows XP
from the Control Panel:
"System/Hardware/DeviceManager/Other devices/Scsi Sequential Device".

You should choose the properties of the SCSI device that represent your
tape device and note the settings. If you just connected the SCSI tape
device, select "Scan for hardware changes" in the Device Manager first.

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Examples:

Below is an example of how the MTD utility can be invoked in Windows
when no driver is available for a tape drive:
mtd \\.\SCSI2:0:5 mydump.mtd

This example creates a tape dump (in mydump.mtd) of the tape loaded into
the drive with SCSI ID 5 connected to the 0th bus of the third (2) SCSI
controller. Often the SCSI port 0 and 1 are occupied by IDE controllers.
If the driver for the tape drive is installed and started then the
appropriate device name must be used:
mtd \\.\tape0 mydump.mtd

Below is an example of how the MTD utility can be used to writes
the data from mtd file format source back to the physical tape:
mtd c:\sources\charon-gui\mtd\mydump.mtd \\.\tape0

Example below specified "output.mtd" as a container for data to be reading
from the physical tape (with 3 attempts to reads each bad block appears).
"/ignore" option cause to keep the output file even if bad block data proceed.
Application log file storing inside the "mtd.log" text file.
mtd \\.\tape0 c:\sources\charon-gui\mtd\output.mtd /log=mtd.log /ignore /reads=3