Accessing a Tape Drive

[Pierre MOUSSET]

Hello,

I'd like to access an On Strean Tape Drive under W2K.

But I don't know how to assign a drive letter to it.

Is there something special to set in the BIOS of my ABIT KT7-RAID ?

Thank you for your help

MOUSPI

 

[TomG]

to my knowledge, you cannot assign a drive letter to streaming tape but I could be wrong. certainly not without some special software and I have never come across anything that does that function. my experience is that the OS will see a tape device but will require an application to be loaded to interface the drive.

 

[Rusty (archive)]

On Sat, 26 Jul 2003 17:17:41 -0400, "TomG"
wrote:

to my knowledge, you cannot assign a drive letter to streaming tape but I could be wrong. certainly not without some special software and I have never come across anything that does that function. my experience is that the OS will see a tape device but will require an application to be loaded to interface the drive.

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

My experiences, too. After five tape drives turning out to be pieces of crap, I went to an a pull-out hard drive on an old workstation, and finally to an external HDD enclosure (USB2). It's a little less convenient than dropping a tape cart into my briefcase, but the thing works relaibly.

BTW, I use Second Copy 2000 because it WORKS. Back Up My PC is a POS, being really nothing more than the old Colorado program, which was cranky.

 

[Bob Troll]

I think you are correct Tom. The backup program will see the tape when it comes time for a backup. I also recall a tape backup taking a really long long time to get the job done on a small hard drive. Like 8 hours for a couple gig, but that was the old original tape drive from conner or whoever it was.

Regards. Bob Troll

TomG wrote:

to my knowledge, you cannot assign a drive letter to streaming tape but I could be wrong. certainly not without some special software and I have never come across anything that does that function. my experience is that the OS will see a tape device but will require an application to be loaded to interface the drive.

"Pierre MOUSSET" wrote:

Hello,

I'd like to access an On Strean Tape Drive under W2K. ...

 

[TomG]

I can remember the days of tape backup... I have around 30 or 40 cartridges here from those days and it could be a multi-day operation once I got some drive capacity...

finding something off the backup would be a forever operation as well.

 

[JimL]

TomG,

finding something off the backup would be a forever operation as well.

No chit! And nuffin is on the cartridge you think it should be on.

I have 2 Iomega tape drives, 1-internal, 1-external. The external is from back in the Win 3.1 era & each cartridge held 250MB....yes MB! The internal some MAX sumfin or another held 5GB, still small now-a-day, both useless under WinXP.

Really need to E-Bay them some day.

 

[TomG]

yup... each of my machines has a tape drive. my main machine even has a 15/30 GB DAT that I don't use any more. too slow and too difficult to get to stuff.

 

[0_Qed]

TomG wrote:

yup... each of my machines has a tape drive. my main machine even has a 15/30 GB DAT that I don't use any more. too slow and too difficult to get to stuff.

Tape 'carts' suck!
=NO= "action" ...

More fun watching Miss Tape Drive load reels ... screw whats on a 'reel', screw the loader.

Tape Vaults had more "uses" than just plain "storage" ...

Youst peeps got no eye_magination.


Qed.

 

[TomG]

yup. I can see it now. "Dear, what is that giant, black, octagonal thing drawing 220 volts sitting in the middle of the office, making all kinds of clunking sounds?" "Nothing dear. Just a tape vault."

 

[0_Qed]

TomG wrote:

yup. I can see it now. "Dear, what is that giant, black, octagonal thing drawing 220 volts sitting in the middle of the office, making all kinds of clunking sounds?" "Nothing dear. Just a tape vault."

Long about the time that Seagate was spray painting iron oxide on platters ... there was also a pre_cursor to the Jetamie ...

Not exactly a 'Machine Room' necessity ... but ...
I think Jamie Z. built it.


Qed.