posted by Gruelius on Jan 8, 2013:
I do not envy you right now, alot of work ahead.. but it seems it will be worth it..
My suggestion (as mentioned before in this thread) is buy a drive that works, put through a cleaning tape write then read a tape.
once that is all done dump maybe the first 10mb of the tape to a binary file (simple with linux), and hopefully someone will be able to figure out what data backup methods were used, if it was backup exec, just tar, or something encrypted. I am sure that there will be multiple servers backed up and multiple backup methods
Wish i was in the same country as you (and still hoarded server gear..)
The other 100% safe option is to go through a data recovery service funded by everyone but i dont think that is financially viable as mentioned... Hopefully someone able to travel to you with the relevant expertise will be able to assist you in testing a tape drive and analysing the tapes and then recovering the data... if its not encrypted.
14TB of tape data
14TB of tape data
posted by CodeAsm on Jan 9, 2013:
Gruelius is saying what I feel is two solutions I agree on. Find the right tape drives, cleaning equipment and test tapes (last part maybe a good test for also software and how to work with these things)
Gruelius is saying what I feel is two solutions I agree on. Find the right tape drives, cleaning equipment and test tapes (last part maybe a good test for also software and how to work with these things)
14TB of tape data
posted by pablojoshua on Aug 18, 2013:
Are you still planning on dumping the tapes, Assembler? Or has this been abandoned pretty much?
Are you still planning on dumping the tapes, Assembler? Or has this been abandoned pretty much?
14TB of tape data
posted by ASSEMbler on Aug 18, 2013:
I still have the tapes stored. I just need drive and software.
I still have the tapes stored. I just need drive and software.
14TB of tape data
posted by rso on Aug 18, 2013:
Did you think about taking Jason Scott up on his offer?
Did you think about taking Jason Scott up on his offer?
14TB of tape data
posted by Nemesis on Aug 19, 2013:
I think something just needs to be done about this rather than sitting on it waiting for a "perfect" drive. The waiting is doing more damage than anything at this point.
Just get a drive, in any condition, and get a few "disposable" tapes to go with it. Read a few of the disposable tapes through the drive half a dozen times, then do a couple of read-write tests. If it all checks out, read the real tape data in. No need to be overly cautious. If you run into a tape or two that's problematic to read, or is in really poor condition, send just those few tapes off to someone with more professional hardware if necessary, but I see absoluely no reason why a second hand drive from ebay or wherever else can't do this job.
I think something just needs to be done about this rather than sitting on it waiting for a "perfect" drive. The waiting is doing more damage than anything at this point.
Just get a drive, in any condition, and get a few "disposable" tapes to go with it. Read a few of the disposable tapes through the drive half a dozen times, then do a couple of read-write tests. If it all checks out, read the real tape data in. No need to be overly cautious. If you run into a tape or two that's problematic to read, or is in really poor condition, send just those few tapes off to someone with more professional hardware if necessary, but I see absoluely no reason why a second hand drive from ebay or wherever else can't do this job.
14TB of tape data
posted by nullChar on Aug 19, 2013:
I would really love to see these tapes dumped, and would be especially curious about any code that may be uncovered in the process.
If time/money is an issue, I would bet that many would help out with contributions. (I'm ready to donate a bit to get the wheels in motion.)
What needs to happen to get this moving?
I would really love to see these tapes dumped, and would be especially curious about any code that may be uncovered in the process.
If time/money is an issue, I would bet that many would help out with contributions. (I'm ready to donate a bit to get the wheels in motion.)
What needs to happen to get this moving?
14TB of tape data
posted by MoonDog on Aug 21, 2013:
I wonder if these contain anything of the unreleased PS1 & Saturn versions of "Killing Time"...
I wonder if these contain anything of the unreleased PS1 & Saturn versions of "Killing Time"...
14TB of tape data
posted by CodeAsm on Aug 21, 2013:
There are multuple type of drives needed and the tapes are recorded using diferent type of software. This is what i remember of this thread and other conversations. It means we need alott of type of drives and the right software to get the backups back, i wonder if those backups can be browsed at all. So we need to find those drives abd software, some test tapes and pray to the backup gods its al good. Only then i rememver Assrmvler wanted to dump the real tapes. I think start with what info we got and get some working drives and tapes. And find software. And a non destructive way to determine wich software was used. I still have hope, but it will take time.(op or friends may correct me on any point here, as im not 100% sure)
There are multuple type of drives needed and the tapes are recorded using diferent type of software. This is what i remember of this thread and other conversations. It means we need alott of type of drives and the right software to get the backups back, i wonder if those backups can be browsed at all. So we need to find those drives abd software, some test tapes and pray to the backup gods its al good. Only then i rememver Assrmvler wanted to dump the real tapes. I think start with what info we got and get some working drives and tapes. And find software. And a non destructive way to determine wich software was used. I still have hope, but it will take time.(op or friends may correct me on any point here, as im not 100% sure)
14TB of tape data
posted by Nemesis on Aug 24, 2013:
The tape backups almost certainly aren't compressed given the era, in which case the data format becomes almost a non-issue. Whatever the storage format, it can be reversed and the files peiced together from some basic analysis of the dumped data. All you need is some hardware which can read the tapes and take a "raw" dump of the data, then someone with some experience in this kind of data analysis (like me for example), and we should be able to extract the information out. In fact, this would probably be the starting point even if you wanted to use the correct software to unpack the data. If you don't know what software was used, you'd have to do some analysis on the data to figure that out.
The tape backups almost certainly aren't compressed given the era, in which case the data format becomes almost a non-issue. Whatever the storage format, it can be reversed and the files peiced together from some basic analysis of the dumped data. All you need is some hardware which can read the tapes and take a "raw" dump of the data, then someone with some experience in this kind of data analysis (like me for example), and we should be able to extract the information out. In fact, this would probably be the starting point even if you wanted to use the correct software to unpack the data. If you don't know what software was used, you'd have to do some analysis on the data to figure that out.