Our system is running OpenVMS7.3-1, it has an 8mm tape drive and a DLT tape drive. We have some 8mm tapes that we need to copy to DLT tapes. We have downloaded the tapecopy.mar file from digiater.nl OpenVMS freeware v5 collection. But we are not sure how to use the program. Can someone please tell me how to use this?

Read the comment at top of tapecopy.mar: ; input tape must be mounted: ; ; $ MOUNT/FOREIGN tapename: "" TAPECOPY$INPUT ; ; output tape must be mounted: ; ; $ MOUNT/FOREIGN tapename: "" TAPECOPY$OUTPUT Do that, the RUN TAPECOPY. If the tape is ANSI labelled (e.g. a VMS BACKUP tape), then You can MOUNT the input tape: MOUNT/OVER=LABEL/NOWRITE inputtape (!not /FOREIGN!) INIT outputtape label (label can be new or the same as inputtape's label) MOUNT outputtape label COPY inputtape:*.* outputtape: Joseph Huber, http://www.huber-joseph.de ITRC

Sorry, I mistyped in a hurry the above MOUNT command: MOUNT/OVER=IDENT/NOWRITE inputtape (!not /FOREIGN!) eventually You need also /OVER=(IDENT,ACCESSABILITY) and ALLOCATE inputtape before MOUNT, if Your privileges don't allow to use /OVER . See HELp MOUNT /over and HELP ALLOCATE . Joseph Huber, http://www.huber-joseph.de ITRC

Joseph, We tried that and when he did the "run tapecopy" we got this message: %DCL-W-ACTIMAGE, error activatine image TAPECOPY.MAR - CLI-E-IMGNAME, image file DISCVR@DRA!:[USER.xxxxx]TAPECOPY.MAR;1 - IMGACT-F-NOTNATIVE, image is not and OpenVMS Alpha Image

Is this the first time You got to use an opensource/freeware program ? I think better to get professional help from a programmer. Tapecopy.mar is the program source (macro32 assembler), not the executable. The executable would have the extension .exe. If there is none in the distribution, then build the executable from sourcfe: MACRO tapecopy LINK tapecopy then RUN tapecopy. Joseph Huber, http://www.huber-joseph.de ITRC

For some caveats and corrections to the tapecopy program, You might want to read the following comp.os.vms topics: http://www.archivum.info/comp.os.vm... or look into the following alternate program: http://vms.process.com/scripts/file... And if You have to copy a bigger archive of VMS BACKUP tapes: http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/s... Joseph Huber, http://www.huber-joseph.de ITRC

You may also look into Glen Everharts tpcopy program, which used to be the copy program for the VMS SIG tape multiplication, and does more error handling than tapecopy. See it e.g. at http://www.decuslib.com/decus/07avm... Look for the tcopy* files. Joseph Huber, http://www.huber-joseph.de ITRC