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Need to restore from tape

I need to restore some 10+ year old data (Lets just say I was still in school when this backup was made). I don't know what type of drive the backup was made on, or with what software. The tape is a DC 2120 QICC 80 mini data cartridge - I have a 2000 machine here with an iomega ditto 800 and a hp Colorado T3000 which isn't in a machine at the moment. The 2000 machine doesn't appear to be recognising the iomega tape drive, and I can't find drivers online. Is there any way I'm going to be able to get at this data? I don't have access to a pre-2000 machine unless I format one and put 95 or 98 on, which, needless to say, I'd like to avoid. A chap who was working here back in the early 90's when the tape was made says he 'thinks' they used an iomega backup. I don't know if his memory is related to the fact that he's looking at an iomega drive, though!

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

pitoren

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pitoren

Hi

Another idea would be to use Linux (a LiveCD distro like Knoppix).

I'm fairly sure the ftape driver supports your iomega ditto drive, and that drive should support the qic-80 cart. But the problem is though it could probably read the data as a stream of bytes, I have no idea what format that stream of bytes will be in. It's highly likely that the tape format was determined by some software supplied with the drive that was used at backup time.

K

pitoren

Hi

http://www.iomega.com/europe/support/english/documents/3046e.html

That Iomega Backup might have been used to backup the data is a good guess?

http://download.iomega.com/english/manuals/english/333401.pdf

Locating your "Ditto Tools" CD would be useful :-)

K

GlobexCorp

ASKER

Ok, I've found a 98 pc and I put the colorado t3000 into it (I've a feeling thats the tape drive that was used, as it was kept specifically for restorations if needed in the future). I've installed the only software I can get on the hp website, which is a backup and restore utility which runs from DOS. When I try to restore what is on the tape, it can't see the tape drive. There is an unknown device in the device properties, but I can't get it to recognise it. Help :)

pitoren

See

http://forums1.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=67368&admit=-682735245+1153490512133+28353475

Chech the BIOS setting?

K

GlobexCorp

ASKER

Ok.. getting same message as top poster in link Pitoren posted when I try to run tapecat.exe.. can't find the CBII v8.0 software offered as a resolution. If the machine picks up the tape, it shows up conflicting with motherboard resources. There is a constant error on secondary ide controller telling me that the device is not presetn, not working properly or does not have the proper drivers installed. Trying to upgrade the drivers tells me the best ones are already there. This computer is driving me slowly but surely insane! :)

I've found various versions of colorado backup software on driverguide.com, but none of them recognise the tape drive.

GlobexCorp

ASKER

on an aside, the tape drive sits on the floppy disk cable, is that still anything to do with the IDE error?

pitoren

where did you find the old win98 PC? In the trash?

:-)

I doubt the IDE error is directly related, but if you disconnect the tape do the messages go away? Maybe an interupt or ioport clash?

CBII s/w is at

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareIndex.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodNameId=12497&prodTypeId=12169&prodSeriesId=63934&swLang=8&taskId=135&swEnvOID=20

(CBII is "Colorado Backup II")

I'm off for the weeknd, good luck!

K

GlobexCorp

ASKER

I found it under the stairs, where all the good pcs go to die :) Ah no, as 98 pcs go, its not a bad one, it has a pIII and 512mb RAM, sure it'd nearly run XP ;)

On disconnecting the tape drive, the messages remained (other than the tape drive conflicting with the motherboard), so I can safely ignore them..

That Colorado backup software (duh, how did I not spot that) makes no difference, still won't see the drive.

I think I might take a leaf out of your book, go home, and forget about it for the weekend :)

GlobexCorp

ASKER

Thanks for all the help - I gave up in the end and used a different tape drive in an xp machine... After all that, the stupid tape didn't have the data I was looking for :) Some days I just hate computers ;)

aletib

I know this is a 10-years old post but may still be searched and found by other people; Problem with tape drives and software (mostly under DOS) is that they use some MB/CPU based timing and they won't work on later machines (after 486) unless you manage to slow them down as much as you can; for example I managed to have a DC-2120 floppy tape to work only after disabling CPU's cache and shadow in BIOS which is probably why your drive wasn't recognized. Good luck to those who are trying to recover old stories from our tape from 20 years ago ;)