Old Tape Backup

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Danger Phoenix

Soldato
Joined
21 Jul 2004
Posts
6,360
Location
Harrow, UK
One of my Dad's clients has an old tape backup which we need to get into or copy the data off onto a computer.

Now the problem is that I know nothing about tape backups and I need to solve/work around two issues:

- we do not know what software was used to make these backups
- apparently there is a password on the tape

Where would I start with this?
 
The tapes are about 5-10 years old, and I have been told they were created on a Novell system - I know that doesn't help much.

I will get hold of the tapes tomorrow, so then I can tell you guys what type of tapes they are. I should be able to get hold of the reader too, but not 100% sure on that.

I do not know the password for the tapes, which is another issue...
 
I haven't got the tapes yet, but I can confirm that they are around 5 years old.

Sin_Chase, when you say specialist, do you have a ball park figure of how much it would cost per tape?
 
I still haven't managed to find out what type of tapes they are, but I made a few calls and the general consensus is roughly £100 for a report on what is on one tape and then around £500 to get the data extracted.

I am not entirely sure how many tapes there are, so the costs could rise considerably, not making it financially worth it.

If the tapes are 5 years old, the chances are it will be a DAT tape right? How much are IDE/USB DAT tape readers nowadays? Will one type of DAT reader be able to read all DAT tapes?
 
Great :(

iaind - would you mind explaining what difference does a Novell volume make? How is it different to lets say a Windows backup? If the data was readable, can it be restored to a hard disk and made bootable?
 
Trojan said:
I'm intrigued as to what kind of data these tapes contain. Why on earth does your dad's client not have a more recent backup?
Click to expand...

It is part of an "investigation" which involves examining old files, programs and backups. I rather not reveal more than that in a public forum. We are unsure whether these tapes are useful or not, so need to decide whether it is financially viable to get the data extracted.
 
Still not managed to get them yet... hopefully tomorrow. Although I did find out that there are around 10 tapes, but they are just backups from different days. Ideally I only need to get into one of these.
 
Right, I have spent a total of £40.74 getting:

1 x Dell 4479R 2 Channel Ultra2 LVD SCSI PCI Card
1 x DELL 9561P LVD SCSI Cable with Terminator
1 x Dell PowerEdge 2500 STD2401LW SCSI DAT Drive 0H834

Hopefully all parts should arrive during the middle of next week and I will attempt to find out what is on these tapes :)
 
I got all the parts today, and I am currently making an image of one of the tapes to my hard disk.

It is taking ****ing ages.

It has been running for around 30 minutes now and has done 5% of 3818982400 bytes :(
 
Code: 
Restore Status
Operation: Restore

Backup of "E: Data", Restored to"C: Windows XP\Friday 4\"
Backup set #1 on media #1
Backup description: "BACKUP"

Restore started on 26/01/2010 at 21:20.

Error: The device reported an error on a request to read data from media.
Error reported: Bad data.
There may be a hardware or media problem.
Please check the system event log for relevant failures.
Restore completed on 26/01/2010 at 21:30.
Directories: 6
Files: 25
Skipped: 1
Bytes: 8,347,400
Time:  9 minutes and  13 seconds

Windows Backup sort of works, but for two tapes it has failed after a short while. It can catalogue the drives though and the partially recovered data is fully readable, which indicates the tapes are not encrypted :)
 
GJUK said:
I would suggest getting a trial version of backup exec as that can read tapes from quite a few sources, even if it a backup from a novell server you should be able to retores to a windows drive (I done that in the past)
Click to expand...

I downloaded Symantec Backup Exec (trial version), and I could find no option of reading from tape drives :(
 
Ahh, the issue I had previous, was that I couldn't run the program properly on a stand alone PC.

During installation, I cannot select "Install Backup Exec software and options" as it is greyed out :(


/Edit: It worked in Windows XP though, so I am guessing it is an issue with Windows 7. Just installing now :)
 
Last edited:
I now have Backup Exec working, and it gave me a read/write error and recommended that I clean the drive. The drive has two green lights on it (and the amber to indicate read/write), so I am guessing one of the green ones is a warning to clean the drive.

I have ordered a cleaning cartridge, which should arrive tomorrow :)
 
The cartridge didn't help, so I mentioned the issue to the eBay seller who I got the tape drive from. He sent a replacement one which arrived today... and it has just taken me 35 mins to copy 6.6gb of data of a tape, with no errors. WOO HOO! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom