Successful Restore of Data - Using 15 Year Old Tape!
This is a screenshot of a Data Restore I did today. Big deal, right?
What if I told you the backup was done to tape 15 years ago? Ok, so I’m a pack rat. It bugged me that a number of years ago I deleted some source code because I knew I would never need it again. Only I decided I did want it after all.
And I wanted to know if I really could get it or if I had been storing tapes (and moving them several times) all for naught.
The PC is a 486DX with 8MB of RAM, 200MB hard drive (check those figures - megabyte NOT gigabyte) with a Colorado Memory Systems 250MB tape drive using DC2000 cartridges. Software used was Colorado Backup for Dos v4.05 (a particularly stable version).
The key to getting data from a tape that old begins when the backup is made:
- Make sure backup is good
- Reboot first
- Clean the tape drive
- Use a decent tape
- Verify the backup
- Label the tape
- Date
- Software used
- Where the password can be found (you do password data backups, right?)
- Tape drive used
- Store tape in climate controlled environment
- Make sure the hardware used to record the tape is available to read it
- When you go to retrieve the data, Pray (Seriously, I mean it!)
Simple, huh? Ok, not always. This PC needed a small kick to get everything working right, and no, it isn’t Y2K compliant.
But I got the data I wanted…
