TCOPY.DOC Roger Jenkins Wycliffe Bible Translators 19891 Beach Blvd. Huntington Beach, CA 92648 (714)-536-9346 INTRODUCTION TCOPY is a high speed tape copy program. It uses two tape drives and copies from one to the other. Double buffering is utilized to keep both drives moving as much as possible. It copies physical records, so it is contents insensitive, and should copy any kind of tape that your drive can read. I have been using it to make copies of BRU, BACKUP, FLX and ANSII tapes for almost a year. PROGRAM OPERATION 1) Place the tapes on the tape drives. You may allocate them, but do not need to mount them. TCOPY will mount them for you. 2) The program is started by typing $ RUN TCOPY. No command line is used. 3) You will be asked to enter the input drive. The input and output default devices are MFA0: and MMA0:. If you press return without entering anything, both devices will be assumed. 4) If you enter the input drive, you will be asked to enter the output drive also. Default is MMA0:. 5) You will be asked if you want the program to print the number of records in each file. Default is NO. 6) You will be asked how many files you want copied. Default is all files. (See Caviats) 7) You will be asked to enter the output density. Default is the input tape density. The program assumes that your output drive density is software selectable. (See Caviats) 7) At this point, the tape will be copied until the desired number of files have been copied or a double end-of-file is encountered. Since it is possible (but unlikely) that there may be data beyond the double EOF, you are told that the double EOF was encountered and asked if you want to continue. If you do, this step will be repeated. 8) When you finally tell the program that you do not want to continue or when the desired number of files are copied, you will be asked: What do you want done with the tapes: 1 - Rewind input, dismount output (default) 2 - Dismount both tapes 3 - Rewind both tapes and leave online 4 - Leave tapes at current position Answer with one of the numbers 1 through 4. TCOPY will then stop. TCOPY Page 2 ERROR RECOVERY TCOPY has extensive error checking built into it. With all errors, it will tell you what it was trying to do when the error occured. Then it will list the VMS error message that tells what happened. Then it will ask you if you want to continue. If you say that you do not want to continue, TCOPY will ask you what you want done with the tapes (as shown above under step 8) then it will stop. If you do want to continue, TCOPY will either retry the operation that failed or simply go on, which ever is most appropriate. An example of an error is: Error mounting input tape %MOUNT-F-DEVMOUNT, device is already mounted Do you want to continue? (Y/N) [D: N] You always have the option of continuing or stopping after each error. CAVIATS We use TCOPY exclusively for copying whole tapes. The ability to copy a specified number of files has not been tested exaustivly. TCOPY does not make sure that the output density was set correctly. It assumes that if it told the drive to write at 1600 then it followed orders. If the density is not software selectable, the program will proceed ignorantly. If your drive has a physical (but no software) switch, you will have to set it to the right density manually. TCOPY has occasionally placed my system in a mode where processes cannot be created. When logging in, the "Welcome to VAX/VMS" message comes out then the loggout message is printed. Batch jobs and subprocesses respond similarly. Existing processes don't seem to be affected. Other sites who have used TCOPY have not reported the problem. The Colorado CSC has given up on trying to solve it. If you duplicate the problem and learn anything about it, PLEASE call me. I have been told that the problem really lies with a micro-code bug in the controller of our third-party drive, but have not confirmed this yet. Our work-around is to copy all tapes the last thing at night then reboot. OM