These are some tools which help recover damaged tar files.  See their
README files for various processing tips.

Porting these to Linux was just a matter of compiling them.
I've gathered these tools here because they're not too easy to find
(primarily due to search engines which don't distinguish between "tar"
in a description and a ".tar suffix), and when you need them then you
need them immediately.  Executable programs are included, but recompiling
them does not take long.

Basically these tools just filter a tar file which may be damaged and
produce a properly-formatted tar file for processing by a tar program
which is not able to ignore errors.  Damaged portions of files probably
are filled with zeroes.

As most Linux sites are using GNU tar, note the options
	--ignore-zeros
	--ignore-failed-read
which may help your recovery efforts.  GNU tar, incidentally, is a
descendant of the "public tar" which is referred to in one of the
attached files.

Recovery of compressed tar files is difficult, and I don't know of
any tools oriented toward that.  If each file is compressed separately
you're likely to be able to recover from the next good file, while if
the entire archive is compressed then you might not be able to recover
anything.  Note that some tools other than tar claim better recovery
abilities.  Not that this does you any good when you're trying to recover
what has already been backed up and damaged.

The original USENET articles are included in their entirety.
Copyrights belong to the respective authors.


Scot E. Wilcoxon	sewilco@fieldday.mn.org           June, 1996
	Laws are society's common sense, written down for the stupid.
	The stupid refuse to read.        Their lawyers read to them.
