Tape drive noob questions

Mister_Pister · 1 Apr 2006 at 11:13

so I got this pc/server in for repair which wont start up. The only hard drive looking thing in there is a tape drive which I need to backup. XP picks it up ok on a diff pc. my understanding is you cant just browse a tape drive like a regular hard disk, and you have to just restore all of whats on it am I right? So basically I would like to know what to use to backup the contents of this tape drive (to a hard disk) and how to do it

Mat-d-Rat · 2 Apr 2006 at 00:04

It depends what they used to backup with, most backup software uses it's own format I believe.

JayMax · 2 Apr 2006 at 19:54

I'd be tempted to take the chance that they've just used (NT)Backup. Using tape media you have to 'inventory' or 'catalogue' the tape - have a look in accessories>backup, and see if you can catalogue it in the restore tab, then you should be able to navigate the tape.

If it's a full OS backup including system state this would require an ASR diskette and the original OS install disk for a full bare metal restore (F2 key at windows install screen iirc).

AndyC · 2 Apr 2006 at 22:09

You could a 30day trial of BackupExec/ARCserve as these can sometimes read different formats