Tape Backups on Other Machine

[Guest]

How do use a tape drive that's on a different machine than the one I want to
backup? It's on my network, and I can get to its shares, its CD drive, and
the printer, but I can't seem to share out the tape drive. Please help.
-Carl

 

[Bob Willard]

How do use a tape drive that's on a different machine than the one I want to
backup? It's on my network, and I can get to its shares, its CD drive, and
the printer, but I can't seem to share out the tape drive. Please help.
-Carl

Windows does not include support for shared tapes. You might check with the
hardware vendor of that tape drive, but don't get your hopes up.

 

[Bob Willard]

Windows does not include support for shared tapes. You might check with
the
hardware vendor of that tape drive, but don't get your hopes up.

I should have added that some backup apps do support backup over
networks, even though the base OS does not supply low-level sharing
support for tapes. Check with the vendor of your backup app, or RTFM
if your backup app vendor has one.

 

[Guest]

Carl,

Windows doesn't let you share a tape drive like you can a CD, but here's how
to make the backup.

Each logical drive on your PC has a built-in Administrative Share. These
are hidden shares designated C$, D$, etc. matching the drive letters you'd
normally use for them.

Assuming you have an Administrator's ID for the machine to be backed up, get
on the machine that has the tape drive, and from there, link to the hidden
Adminstrative drive shares on your own machine that you want to backup. Map
them to drives on the tape machine. Once mapped, they're useable juust like
local drives.

Now you can go into the tape machine's own Windows backup program, and
select only those mapped drives as the data you want to back up. These
hidden shares represent the entire contents of your dirves, hidden and system
files included, so you'll get a complete backup right over the network
conection.

Hope this helps.

Leon Myerson