tar error unrecoverable?

[Curt Tresenriter]

On Sat, 25 Jan 2014 09:40:00 +0000
Colin Law <clanlaw at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 24 January 2014 23:39, Curt Tresenriter <ctres at grics.net> wrote:
> >
> > I then tried to copy it back to the disc it was on originally when
> > it threw another IO error.
> >
> > If that isn't clear, I'm really not sure what I'm missing.
> 
> Possible meanings:
> 1. I then tried to copy it back to the original disc (that is the disc
> that the file was on when it threw the error).



> 2. I then tried to copy it back to the original disc and during the
> copy it threw an IO error reading the file.



> 3. I then tried to copy it back to the original disc and during the
> copy it threw an IO error writing the file.


> 4. I then successfully copied it back to the original disc and when I
> tried to unpack the new copy it threw an IO error.
> 
> Colin
> 

Colin
I really do appreciate your attempt to clarify this.
Your examples do shed some light for me.

In all the years I've used Linux I've never needed to create such an
archive before so I'm completely unfamiliar with how things might go
wrong. Didn't occur to me to unpack to test it when I made it.


It now occurs to me that the original archiving may not have been
successful. Maybe the archive was corrupted from the beginning.

re:
your example #1 

I would modify your sentence like this:

> I then tried to copy it back to the original disc that is, the disc
> that the file was on, when it threw the error.

Meaning... When I attempted (failed being implied here) to copy back to it's original
home is when the error occurred. The result was 3GB of the file
transferred before Nautilus reported the IO error.

To me your sentence seems to say the file was on the original disc when
the error occurred but I probably misunderstood that too.

example 2 & 3

They both seem to me to be the same.
I guess I'm not sure if it was a read or a write error.
  
It was during my attempt (again, failure is implied?) to copy it back to
the original disc that the error occurred - I thought it was obvious
that the error was that it would not write but I see it may have been in
reading that it choked.
How to tell?

Maybe the file was corrupt from the beginning - ie. immediately after
originally archiving?

example 4

I didn't try to unpack when it was on the original disc - either
before or after copying. It was during the attempt to copy from 2nd
disc to first when the error happened.