stripping leading directories from tar file

"Jon Miller" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.linux.redhat.release.enigma
Message-ID <[email protected]>
I have a tarred file that has several directories before the filename:
ex: mnt/hdd/etc/filename.tar.gz
What I need to do is untar the file to:
/etc/filename
I'm assuming if I issue the following command it will yield the wrong results
tar -xzvf filename.tar.gz /etc 
/etc/mnt/hdd/etc/filename
Is there a way to strip off the /mnt/hdd?

Thanks

Jon L. Miller, MCNE, CNS
Director/Sr Systems Consultant
MMT Networks Pty Ltd
http://www.mmtnetworks.com.au

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