[HECnet] SIMH TOPS-20 question --> recipe for handling Tops20 install tapes --> MTBOOT --> create new PS: structure

Actually, come to think about it you should be able to create a new PS in 2 phases: 1. boot tape and create a pristine PS: up to and including DLUSER stuff; see installation manual posted earlier. 2. boot another monitor, mount the pristine PS as another structure on it; skip the tape 7 files and use monitor dumper to restore the savesets on the pristine structure. Point to check is if a bootstrap is written to the pristine structure but the installation manual will make that clear. If I have some time I will checkthe problem out if the tape has a problem or not and how to create a structure from it; meanwhile you still cann retrieve files which was your primary requirement I believe. Reindert -----Original Message----- From: Paul Koning [mailto:paulkoning at comcast.net] Sent: Saturday, 25 December, 2021 22:24 To: Reindert Voorhorst <R.Voorhorst at swabhawat.com> Cc: <hecnet at update.uu.se> <hecnet at Update.UU.SE> Subject: Re: [HECnet] SIMH TOPS-20 question --> recipe for handling Tops20 install tapes --> MTBOOT wrote: ?G143, so no skipping filemarks are needed as the monitor is the first file. So it is, interesting. What's strange is that -f tpc reports success, while -f simh reports an error: After processing 1159680 bytes of tape data (453 records, 5 tapemarks) Read Tape Record Returned Unexpected Status: invalid record length 19827814 bytes of unexamined data remain in the tape image file but indeed in this format I can boot the tape. paul