> Sorry but I have to disagree, as I have been part of a group where we did it 
> this. Unfortunately I don't work at that company anymore so I don't have 
> access to the scripts and documentation we did.
> 
> Actually you could use mt to change EOM to EOF.

It depends on the hardware.  Many common drives (like DLT) just won't
let you do this easily.  Yes you can overwrite the EOM, but when that
write is complete, the drive will put down a new one.  So there's always
one at the end of the newly written section.

One trick I've heard was to start writing at the end (thus overwriting
the existing EOM) and then power off the drive in the middle so it
couldn't write a new one.  I tried that a few times (just as a test) and
was never successful reading the old data.  I kept ketting sync errors
from the drive as I tried to 'mt' past it.  I have heard reports where
this did work for folks (although it may have been on 8mm or some other
media).

The recovery shops have special firmware/hardware that makes it easier
for them to get around these limitations.

-- 
Darren Dunham                                           ddunham AT taos DOT com
Senior Technical Consultant         TAOS            http://www.taos.com/
Got some Dr Pepper?                           San Francisco, CA bay area
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