VOGONS


First post, by TonyStark

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Hello fellow retro fans, a friend of mine gave me a Colorado 250MB tape streamer and some tapes with stuff inside. I was thinking of putting it on a working Win98 machine (with DOS included of course). My question is, do you happen to know what kind of software I could use to read (or attempt to) the tapes and get the data on the hard drive of the machine? The streamer is using floppy edge connector interface.
thank you in advance

Reply 1 of 6, by mR_Slug

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There were a number of programs used to read/write to tape and AFAIK they all used different formats. On Linux you have good old tar. I don't know how you work out what program used to write the tapes. There was some discussion about this on vcfed.org a few years ago. Perhaps a google search will turn something up.

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Reply 2 of 6, by davidrg

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Before putting any tapes in it, its probably worth taking the cover off the drive and checking everything is OK in there. IIRC these are a kind of QIC drive and a lot of (most?) QIC drives at this point are having difficulty with the rubber capstan turning to goo.

Reply 3 of 6, by Unknown_K

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The tension band on the tapes fall apart while the capstan on the drives turn to goo. Also check the optical EOT sensor for dust or you will snap the tape. I read 50+ 120MB tapes over a dozen years ago and they were very reliable but things do age and who knows how they were stored.

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Reply 4 of 6, by TonyStark

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well AFAIK the drive was stored in a dry and cool place. I will definitely have a look inside of it before I place it on a computer

Reply 5 of 6, by Grzyb

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I have such a streamer, complete with the original diskettes...

Nie tylko, jak widzicie, w tym trudność, że nie zdołacie wejść na moją górę, lecz i w tym, że ja do was cały zejść nie mogę, gdyż schodząc, gubię po drodze to, co miałem donieść.

Reply 6 of 6, by TonyStark

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orginal diskettes ? you mean the software drivers etc ? if so, could you please provide a copy, if applicable ? thank you in advance.

UPDATE : just saw the attachment. A thousand thanks !