How is this supposed to work?

Under win2000, I used NTBACKUP.EXE and this worked fine.

I have now moved the same tape hardware (an Adaptec 29160N SCSI
controller and a Quantum DLT4 tape drive) to a newly built winXP
machine and while the SCSI controller shows up in Control Panel (and
it has the correct latest driver) the tape drive does not show
anywhere, and NTBACKUP tries to backup to the floppy in drive A: and
does not show any device options.

I don't recall needing drivers for the tape drive itself...

How is this supposed to work?

"Peter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> How is this supposed to work?
>
> Under win2000, I used NTBACKUP.EXE and this worked fine.
>
> I have now moved the same tape hardware (an Adaptec 29160N SCSI
> controller and a Quantum DLT4 tape drive) to a newly built winXP
> machine and while the SCSI controller shows up in Control Panel (and
> it has the correct latest driver) the tape drive does not show
> anywhere, and NTBACKUP tries to backup to the floppy in drive A: and
> does not show any device options.
>
> I don't recall needing drivers for the tape drive itself...
>
>
Your recollection is probably inaccurate. I would be very surprised if XP
was able to work with your tape drive without any drivers. With hard disks
being so cheap these days, why not backup to a hard disk using something
like Trueimage. It will be more reliable than tape anyway (and probably
quicker).

In article <(E-Mail Removed)>,
Peter <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>How is this supposed to work?
>
>Under win2000, I used NTBACKUP.EXE and this worked fine.
>
>I have now moved the same tape hardware (an Adaptec 29160N SCSI
>controller and a Quantum DLT4 tape drive) to a newly built winXP
>machine and while the SCSI controller shows up in Control Panel (and
>it has the correct latest driver) the tape drive does not show
>anywhere, and NTBACKUP tries to backup to the floppy in drive A: and
>does not show any device options.
>
>I don't recall needing drivers for the tape drive itself...
>
>How is this supposed to work?


I recall needing a vender-provided driver under Windows Server for a
Quantun DLT drive.

Can you plug a random SCSI disk drive into the chain and see it?



--
Al Dykes
News is something someone wants to suppress, everything else is advertising.
- Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the Daily Mail

"Peter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "M.I.5¾" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>
>>"Peter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>>news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>> How is this supposed to work?
>>>
>>> Under win2000, I used NTBACKUP.EXE and this worked fine.
>>>
>>> I have now moved the same tape hardware (an Adaptec 29160N SCSI
>>> controller and a Quantum DLT4 tape drive) to a newly built winXP
>>> machine and while the SCSI controller shows up in Control Panel (and
>>> it has the correct latest driver) the tape drive does not show
>>> anywhere, and NTBACKUP tries to backup to the floppy in drive A: and
>>> does not show any device options.
>>>
>>> I don't recall needing drivers for the tape drive itself...
>>>
>>>
>>Your recollection is probably inaccurate. I would be very surprised if XP
>>was able to work with your tape drive without any drivers. With hard
>>disks
>>being so cheap these days, why not backup to a hard disk using something
>>like Trueimage. It will be more reliable than tape anyway (and probably
>>quicker).
>>
>>
>
> Actually I have just solved it. Yes, one needs drivers from Quantum
> for the DLT drive. The drive did actually appear under Control Panel
> (not sure why I missed it before...) with a question mark next to it;
> pointing the PC to the directory with the Quantum drivers made it work
> (with ntbackup.exe) just fine.
>
> Tape is actually great because you can make multiple copies and put
> them in a safe etc. I have ~ 120GB to back up and one cannot make 10
> copies of that on a HD and if one did and lost that HD one loses the
> lot. This is an old game, which is why the pros all still use tape,
> after all these years...
>

There is a bit of a difference between what pros can afford and have access
to, and what the average home user can afford. I backup to a pair of hard
disks (using alternate disks). A least hard disks are a couple of orders of
magnitude more reliable than tape (DAT being much worse than QIC). There is
no need to make 10 copies of a backup unless you are especially paranoid. 2
copies is considered adequate, but one copy is a definite no no. Besides
there are no consumer tape drives large enough to hold my hard disk.

> I use Trueimage too (great for its bootable recovery CD) but one
> cannot restore individual files from the backup - short of mounting it
> using Trueimage and I find that usually crashes (TI v11) the PC
> completely.
>

There must be something wrong with your instalation. Restoring individual
files from a Trueimage backup is easy. It should mount without problems.

"Peter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>
> "M.I.5¾" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk> wrote:
>
>>A least hard disks are a couple of orders of
>>magnitude more reliable than tape
>
> That's not my experience though I agree that a lot of DAT tape
> cartridges are duff, and the drives don't last that long (a few years
> at most, doing 1 backup a week).
>
> But comparing the reliability of long term tape storage with the
> reliability of data stored on a HD running 24/7, there is no contest.
> The HD *will* fail.
>

Magnetic tape media has an amazingly short archival life. Typically 5 years
tops. And, yes, I have had experience of tape media that was completely
unreadable in such a short period of time. But we are talking about system
backup here not system archiving. Backup is a short term requirement as the
backup is effectively obsolete once the next one is made (depending on your
actual regime, it may not be obsolete until the backup after next).
However, having said that, I have occasionally had to rumage through older
backups (I do keep old backups regularly for up to a year).

M.I.5¾ wrote:
> "Peter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>
>> "M.I.5¾" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>>> A least hard disks are a couple of orders of
>>> magnitude more reliable than tape
>>
>> That's not my experience though I agree that a lot of DAT tape
>> cartridges are duff, and the drives don't last that long (a few years
>> at most, doing 1 backup a week).
>>
>> But comparing the reliability of long term tape storage with the
>> reliability of data stored on a HD running 24/7, there is no contest.
>> The HD *will* fail.
>>
>
> Magnetic tape media has an amazingly short archival life. Typically 5
> years,
> tops.

Cites, please? I don't believe that figure. Heck, I've even got old
reel-to-reel tapes that still work fine (dating back to the 1960's).

On Thu, 22 May 2008 19:52:04 -0600, "Bill in Co."
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>M.I.5¾ wrote:
>>
>> Magnetic tape media has an amazingly short archival life. Typically 5
>> years,
>> tops.
>
>Cites, please? I don't believe that figure. Heck, I've even got old
>reel-to-reel tapes that still work fine (dating back to the 1960's).

I don't think you'll get any cites. "5 years tops" is a laughable
contention.

Here's just one cite in support of that:

http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/2481

There are more:

http://preview.tinyurl.com/5tgo2c

Nonny wrote:
> On Thu, 22 May 2008 19:52:04 -0600, "Bill in Co."
> <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
>
>> M.I.5¾ wrote:
>>>
>>> Magnetic tape media has an amazingly short archival life. Typically 5
>>> years, tops.
>>
>> Cites, please? I don't believe that figure. Heck, I've even got
>> old
>> reel-to-reel tapes that still work fine (dating back to the 1960's).
>
> I don't think you'll get any cites. "5 years tops" is a laughable
> contention.

I think so too.

> Here's just one cite in support of this:
>
> http://www.realtechnews.com/posts/2481
>
> There are more:
>
> http://preview.tinyurl.com/5tgo2c

Interestingly enough, at that first site...:
(Gerecke, a physicist and storage expert at IBM Deutschland, has his own
opinions, some of which are given below):

Gerecke's recommendation for long term storage? Magnetic tape, of all
things. "Tape can have a life of 30 to 100 years."

And in talking about CDs....
"Unlike pressed original CDs, burned CDs have a relatively short life span
of between two to five years, depending on the quality of the CD".

(But I don't believe that one, however. The proof is in the pudding, and
I've got burned CDs older than that). But maybe it's more problematic
for CDs burned in the TAO (R/W) mode (or CD-R/Ws, if there is such a thing),
rather than the DAO mode.

(I may be getting the CD R/W terminology mixed up with the DVD's terminology
here, but I *do* know you can burn a CD in either TAO or DAO mode, and I
always use the latter (DAO mode), since it has much less potential for being
problematic).

"Leythos" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> In article <483544bc$(E-Mail Removed)>,
> (E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk says...
>> Magnetic tape media has an amazingly short archival life. Typically 5
>> years
>> tops. And, yes, I have had experience of tape media that was completely
>> unreadable in such a short period of time. But we are talking about
>> system
>> backup here not system archiving.
>
> I have an IOMEGA Tape drive, one they sent me to Beta, and it still
> reads/writes their tapes, just fine - more than 10 years ago.....
>
> Most DLT Tape shows a Archive Life of 30 years, figure half of that if
> you want to be reasonably sure you can read it.
>

Then you clearly don't know what 'archival life' means. You claim a 30 year
archival life and then add a second sentence that states that it is at least
half of what you claim. Archival life is the longest time after which you
can guarantee to recover the data with a certainty in the very high 90's of
percent from a single copy.

Most tape is rated for an archival life of just 4 years. It may *probably*
yield up its data much longer after this, but that's not what archival life
is about.

By the way, the archival life of words printed on a modern sheet of paper
are an astonishingly short 10 years.

>
> --
> - Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
> - Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
> drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
> (E-Mail Removed) (remove 999 for proper email address)

"Bill in Co." <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> M.I.5¾ wrote:
>> "Peter" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
>> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>>
>>> "M.I.5¾" <(E-Mail Removed)_SPAM.co.uk> wrote:
>>>
>>>> A least hard disks are a couple of orders of
>>>> magnitude more reliable than tape
>>>
>>> That's not my experience though I agree that a lot of DAT tape
>>> cartridges are duff, and the drives don't last that long (a few years
>>> at most, doing 1 backup a week).
>>>
>>> But comparing the reliability of long term tape storage with the
>>> reliability of data stored on a HD running 24/7, there is no contest.
>>> The HD *will* fail.
>>>
>>
>> Magnetic tape media has an amazingly short archival life. Typically 5
>> years,
>> tops.
>
> Cites, please? I don't believe that figure. Heck, I've even got
> old reel-to-reel tapes that still work fine (dating back to the 1960's).

So have I, but that is not archival life. Do you have any that you can't
read?