Know anything about Travan cartridges?

drasnordrasnor Starship OperatorHawthorne, CA Icrontian
edited June 2005 in Hardware
My boss handed me a 400/800MB Travan cartridge and expressed curiosity as to what was on it. I have a 10/20GB Travan tape drive sitting on my desk that the cartridge fits into.

I plugged the tape drive into one of my Windows XP machines and it's picked up in Device Manager as a tape drive but has no entry in My Computer. First question: Can my drive read this tape? Question two: If yes, then how?

-drasnor :fold:

Comments

  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    1: I HIGHLY doubt it, but I can't say that with absolute certainty.
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    Usually tape drives are backward compatible. If it is readable, you might have to do it through a backup program. Usually the contents are compressed in some sort of proprietary format, and unless it's the same backup program, I think you're SOL.

    Tex, this seems right up your alley. Help this man in need!:)
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited June 2005
    It more then likely won't show in my computer.

    Obvious question for Mr. Boss is "where did the tape come from"? He is curious as to the contents, then hopefully he has a clue as to where it was created. I doubt it just hatched one day on his desktop.

    IF and I emphasis IF in capitals it was backed up using windows backup and not a proprietary piece of software (commonly used with travan drives like the ones from Colorado Memory, Seagate, and others) you can go into the backup routines under windows and see if the tape was recognized. I doubt it will be. Most folks using travan tapes used the tape software that comes with the drives. But its worth a shot. Try the colorado memory website and see if they have software to download. Or who ever made your tape drive you have in your possesion. It came with custom software.
    HP and Dell I think both shipped travan tape drives based on Colorado memorys drives. But Seagate was another major player. I bet you can download Dell and HP's tape software from them. I havent touched a CO Memory drive since they were like 40mb tapes...

    Wish I could help more but none of my customers use that crap or I would say send it to me. Its all scsi dat and dlt tapes on this end.

    Post back who made your tape drive and I'll offer more options.

    Tex
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    My tape drive was made by Seagate and included in an older Dell machine. I'll ask him where his tape came from, but given the preponderence of Dells where I work I'm betting it came from one of those. Problem is, none of them have tape drives.

    I checked the Windows Backup software but no dice on reading the tape. I'm not sure if it should even be able to; the tape is dated 1999. I'll see if I can find information on the tape software from Dell.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited June 2005
    Yep I would try Dells site first. But evry major backup software company, (Vertitas etc...) has a proprietary format. So without knowing what software or even OS created the tape your pretty much taking shots in the dark and praying.

    Tex
  • TexTex Dallas/Ft. Worth
    edited June 2005
    If this was essential (company data that could not be replicated) then I could play in linux with "dd" and try recover the tape.

    If bossman is just curious and has no idea whats on the tape.................

    Tell him its a bunch of old Dilbert cartoon backups. And you intend to paste copies of them on your office door as they are all "classics".

    And please paste his hair down as its beginning to look like Dilberts pointy headed boss.

    Tex
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    Well, to be honest he was getting ready to throw the tape away while expressing curiosity, "What the hell did I put on this thing anyway?" I volunteered that I might be able to look into it for him to which he replied not to expend more than casual effort.

    -drasnor :fold:
  • TheBaronTheBaron Austin, TX
    edited June 2005
    why not just dd the tape to disk, and then later on if you are still curious you might be able to get something out of it
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    TheBaron wrote:
    why not just dd the tape to disk, and then later on if you are still curious you might be able to get something out of it
    Don't have my linux box with me :(

    -drasnor :fold:
  • drasnordrasnor Starship Operator Hawthorne, CA Icrontian
    edited June 2005
    I got it. I guessed correctly that the tape was made using Seagate Backup Exec (free download from Dell) so all the data is streaming at a glorious 2MB/sec to my hard disk. What a pain.

    -drasnor :fold:
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