[plug] Erasing a file from the end of a tape

[Ryan]

On Tue, 2004-10-19 at 16:42, Julian Clark wrote:
> Hi Ryan
> Umm, I'm no expert in this, but perhaps the dd command may be of some 
> use to you. If I'm completely wrong, hopefully someone will set me straight.
> 
> Anyway.. something like this could do the trick.
> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/your_tape_drive 
> seek=num_blocks_to_start_of_long_file bs=some_block_size
> 
> As always, man dd will give you a better explanation than I can.

Before posting I did try this by seeking to the end of the last complete
file and just writing /dev/zero and hoping it would write to the end of
the tape, get an I/O error and stop.  I couldn't get dd to accept my
tape as an output device though :(

Anyone know if 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/tape' is meant to work as we are
both anticipating?  For me it just exists instantly with 0 blocks
written.

Ryan