From owner-freebsd-hackers Wed Aug 14 02:19:10 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) id CAA18078 for hackers-outgoing; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 02:19:10 -0700 (PDT) Received: from skiddaw.elsevier.co.uk (root@skiddaw.elsevier.co.uk [193.131.222.60]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id CAA18073 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 02:19:04 -0700 (PDT) Received: from snowdon.elsevier.co.uk (snowdon.elsevier.co.uk [193.131.197.164]) by skiddaw.elsevier.co.uk (8.6.13/8.6.12) with ESMTP id KAA10445 for ; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 10:18:45 +0100 Received: from tees.elsevier.co.uk (actually host tees) by snowdon with SMTP (PP); Wed, 14 Aug 1996 10:18:22 +0100 Received: (from dpr@localhost) by tees.elsevier.co.uk (8.6.13/8.6.12) id KAA01820; Wed, 14 Aug 1996 10:17:33 +0100 To: "Jordan K. Hubbard" Cc: "Hr.Ladavac" , philip_milne@il.us.swissbank.com (Philip Milne), hackers@freebsd.org, armando_ferreira@il.us.swissbank.com, charlie_conklin@il.us.swissbank.com Subject: Re: Nightmare. References: <4910.839936868@time.cdrom.com> From: Paul Richards Date: 14 Aug 1996 10:17:33 +0100 In-Reply-To: "Jordan K. Hubbard"'s message of Tue, 13 Aug 1996 04:47:48 -0700 Message-ID: <57g25q9vf6.fsf@elsevier.co.uk> Lines: 27 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.30 Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk "Jordan K. Hubbard" writes: > > > > tar -cvf /dev/rfd0a / > > > > This has utterly trashed your boot device (and / lies there.) I seriuosly > > doubt that you can do anything but reinstall. > > Probably the right conclusion, but for the wrong reasons. Ehh, either I'm missing something really stupid or everyone else is :-) tar -cvf /dev/rfd0a / is going to backup the / partition onto a floppy, what's wrong with that? About the worst that could happen is that rfd0a doesn't exist and you create a tar archive, at which point tar will say something like "/usr/bin/tar: /dev/rfd0 is the archive; not dumped" or you fill a floppy (doesn't gnu tar prompt for new floppies anyway). I certainly wouldn't expect this command to trash my / partition. -- Paul Richards. Originative Solutions Ltd. (Netcraft Ltd. contractor) Elsevier Science TIS online journal project. Email: p.richards@elsevier.co.uk Phone: 0370 462071 (Mobile), +44 (0)1865 843155