Berkeley CSUA MOTD:Entry 10308
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2025/05/25 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/25    

2003/9/24 [Computer/SW/Security, Computer/HW/Drives] UID:10308 Activity:nil
9/23    I have some data tapes that I haven't touched in 5 years.  I used
        nbackup in DOS on a 486 to make the tapes.  Using the same program
        on the same computer, I am trying to restore those files.  I was
        able to open the tapes, but when I try to restore, it says
        "Cannot access tape drive" or just keeps asking me to insert the
        tape when it's already inserted.  Is it possible that the tape is
        old and that the data is lost, or is the problem more likely the
        tape drive?  How can I retrieve this data?
        \_ Does it say this for *every* tape?  Unless *all* your tapes have
           been damaged by some environmental event or they were shitty tapes
           to start with, it is more likely the tape drive is shot.  If you
           have a unix box with the right tape drive you should be able to
           at least use dd to read raw data from the tapes as a test.
             \_ Actually, since I posted that, I was able to get some data
                from one of the tapes.  But then it kept giving me error
                messages again.  I looked closely at the tape, and the tape
                is physically only connected to one spool (this was not the
                case originally), and it's not as easy as you might think
                to get it back on the other spool neatly.
                 \_ I had this same thing happen years ago. There is an
                    "end of tape" optical sensor in the drive, and if it
                     gets dusty, the drive unspools the tapes. You could
                     try to put the tape back together after cleaning the
                     dust out of the drive, but I suspect you might be out
                     of luck.  This is why I abandoned tapes, and switched
                     to hard disks backups. and disks don't make that
                     annoying whining sound when searching for files. Look
                     in the Sunday paper and get a 150GB disk for $90. use
                     an old extra computer as a backup server, or get an
                     external drive, but either way, make sure to spin it
                     up often:  hard disks can die from stiction if left
                     unused in an "off" state for too long (years).
ERROR, url_link recursive (eces.Colorado.EDU/secure/mindterm2) 2025/05/25 [General] UID:1000 Activity:popular
5/25    

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