Restoring Data from Old Backup Tapes
 

Hi,
I found some old tapes from the mid-1990s when I had a tape backup (QIC-3010-MC, QIC-40 type). I am wondering if there are services where I can send the tapes and have them burn the data to a CD/DVD. It should be more than 1 DVDs worth of data, nonetheless going forward these tapes will degenerate and I do not longer have the tape backup drives.

I think it would prob. be cheaper to just get a used tape drive (from ebay, etc) that's compatible with the tapes you have...

HTSC

A lot of those old QIC type drives ran off the floppy disk controller in your PC. IF your PC even has a floppy controller inside (or one that can handle two drives if you already have a floppy) then you have to worry about getting software to recognize it. Do you know what software was used to write to the tape? They all have their own format.

The only way I'd do this is with an old computer running the same old software you used to create the tape.

I've not seen a desktop machine without a floppy controller. They might not have a floppy drive attached to it but they usually leave the controller in because they are occasionally needed.

A quick search on ebay: http://tinyurl.com/nmzehs

Oh, I've DEFINITELY seen new computers without floppy controllers. I had a giant fiasco with an HP where it had a RAID controller, but Windows XP's setup only allows you to load the RAID driver during setup from a floppy disk, and it wasn't taking my USB....

That said, just because it has a floppy controller doesn't mean the old software (old Colorado Backup, etc) will be able to access the drive if it isn't designed to talk through the XP (etc) kernel.

It's the very issue of setup disks needing to be loaded via floppy that necessitates them! Whether there is a drive mounted on that controller is another matter, but if need be you can open the case and plug one in.

In fact, with my case that's how I have to do it--the hole to mount the floppy is too far from the board. If I need a floppy it sits inside the case.

But when HP doesn't even include the CONTROLLER it gets a little more difficult. It is pretty tough to find a PCI floppy controller these days ;)

They are idiots!

I used to love HP but it's been years since I would touch their stuff.

You're telling me. This was on a "server" computer advertised as supporting RAID for Win XP / server 2003. I had to get another PC in a real pinch and CDW never did credit me the restocking fee. Now I'm Lenovo all the way!

To get back to the original topic, you want to find a company that does "data migration" and a Google search will turn up a few.

I've use these guys http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/ and http://www.i365.com/ to handle any tapes that my users come up with. When you ask around, just make sure you specify that you want data migrated, not recovered.