Post #12,571
10/10/01 12:57:16 AM
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FTape for Windows
#1 I have an old Colorado 250M QIC-80 Floppy Drive on an 80Mz Cyrix 6X86 system.
#2 The HP/Colorado software for Windows 95 and DOS reeks.
#3 HP wants more money for an updated version.
#4 I am out of work, on short-term disability.
#5 FTape I thought was GPL'ed? Part of Linux?
#6 In 1995, it worked with FTape for Linux. But if I went over a 150Mhz processor it wouldn't work. Once I upgraded to a 200Mhz Pentium MMX CPU, the drive refused to work. The 6X86 only has a 340M IDE Hard Drive, might not boot the latest Linux.
#7 I have some old Tapes that have been formatted with FTape and Linux. :( While at home I have been restoring to a networked hard drive and then writing to a CDR disk.
Did anyone do a DOS or Win32 port of it yet?
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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Post #12,579
10/10/01 1:57:01 AM
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A few general thoughts
FTape, and particularly 250MB, is pretty old crud. I don't know if I've tossed the drive I was gifted, but I don't plan to use it. You might want to look at getting a (used?) CDR or DAT drive.
If the need is archive from/to a Legacy MS Windows partition, your best bet is probably using ftape support under GNU/Linux via a rescue Linux system -- [link|http://www.toms.net/rb/|Tom's Root/Boot] or [link|http://www.lnxbbc.org/|LNX-BBC]. Boot, mount the appropriate partition, create or restore backups, and rock'n'roll.
You can definitely boot Linux onto a 340MB system. You might not be able to put much of it there if you plan on converting the box, but if you've got another Linux system, you can set up an X terminal pretty easily.
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
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Post #12,636
10/10/01 12:21:37 PM
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Recovery of old data
I have a CDR, it is just that I have some old data on 250M tapes I want to recover.
I just found that two of my Windows 95 backups have errors on the first tape and I cannot recover them. Programs and other stuff I have worked on before 1995, are now gone. I hope the Linux/FTape tapes are not damaged as well. I backed up my old 1995 Linux system to six tapes.
Ah well, might as well format all the old tapes, remove the stickers, and sell the tape drive and tapes on EBay. How much do you think I can get for a 250M drive, and 30 tapes? The thing uses a floppy drive interface.
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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Post #12,670
10/10/01 1:35:18 PM
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$15?
In a day when individual programs approach the size of those tapes and a 20-Gig drive is considered "too small" . .
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #12,695
10/10/01 3:34:09 PM
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I might as well give it away to charity then
Considering that I paid $200 for the drive way back when (Circa 1993) and the tapes cost me a lot to buy as well. :(
Should I include it on the next Group that wants used equipment?
Or should I collect a big bag of old/junk parts and try to sell those on EBay as a group?
I got an old:
286 motherboard (10Mhz Whoo-hoo!)
AMD 33Mhz 386DX Chip
2 486SX 25Mhz chips
Broken CD-ROM drive (not sure how to make it work, may need repairs?)
Assorted ISA and Local Bus cards, unsure if they work or not.
5.25" 1.2M Floppy Drive
etc.
I still say that IWETHEY should hold a computer garage sale or something, I think we all have old parts that we could stand to get rid of?
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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Post #12,696
10/10/01 3:36:48 PM
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Is it really charity .....
When the thing you are giving is essentially worthless?
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong
H. L. Mencken, Mencken's Metalaw
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Post #12,702
10/10/01 3:47:21 PM
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Better than pitching it into the dump
should I toss it into a land-fill or find some group that might make a use out of it?
I am sure that someone with an older computer system Circa 1993-1996 could make use of it. Someone who cannot even afford a Pentium or higher system and cannot afford the latest 250M Software titles.
Bah, maybe I should just take out a sledgehammer and pound it into bits to releave some of my stress?
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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Post #12,715
10/10/01 4:34:05 PM
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If it makes you feel better
By all means, pound the living sh*t out of it. A little venting sounds like it would do you good.
For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution;
and it is always wrong
H. L. Mencken, Mencken's Metalaw
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Post #12,777
10/10/01 8:55:22 PM
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The years are not kind to party girls...
...or old computer hardware.
If you know a computer museum that might have an interest, or someone who needs to do data conversion, part it out. It's worthless for practical use. Media are likely not avialable or prohibitively expensive.
My choice: toss it. If you're feeling responsible, find a place that accepts computer hardware for proper disposal -- toxics, etc., are an issue.
--
Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
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Post #12,780
10/10/01 9:10:28 PM
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I don't know of any place like that
at least near me. Nobody seems to want to take in used computer parts. Might as well sell it on Ebay to someone that doesn't know any better and thinks that $15 or more is a bargan for a Tape Drive? :)
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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Post #12,828
10/11/01 12:03:53 AM
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Oh, the media's still available.
It's a loooooong time before Imation discontinues a tape. Problem is, these Colorado things barely worked to start with. I've got a heap of dead and useless ones.
[link|http://www.aaxnet.com|AAx]
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Post #12,842
10/11/01 1:33:27 AM
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I must be very very lucky then
It has been sitting on a shelf for almost 6 years and still works ok. I can read tapes that I made in 1994 and 1995. Just that two sets of Windows 95 backups seem to be a "Bad Format" or something.
I recall in 1994 that I had to download an updated version of the tape software to avoid CRC (Not you Christian) errors on restores.
Picking up the pieces of my broken life.
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