Hi all.

I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.

Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was removed.
But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu disks
with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.

Terminators are present at the tape.
I configured the 1542C as to an old newsgroup posting from myself (I
had problems with that drive originally as well).
The 1542C recognizes a disk and the tape drive.
But when NT boots, it takes several minutes during the blue screen
while the tape's and the contoller's LEDs are blinking alternately for
several seconds. Suddenly it will go on booting (dotted line on blue
screen).

But in NT no devices on the Adaptec SCSI bus are reported and no tape
driver is loaded, the disk is not present (the contoller reported it
as D: while initiliazing and D: is not used otherwise).

Both devices are connected internally on the same cable.
I also tried on device at a time (with terminators installed on the
disk) and a 2 different cables.

Anybody got any idea as to what might be wrong?

I'm sure it had worked before... but years ago...

Thanks for any hint!

Regards,
Harald Henkel

At Tue, 12 May 2009 06:38:07 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> Hi all.
> 
> I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
> 
> Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was removed.
> But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu disks
> with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.
> 
> Terminators are present at the tape.
> I configured the 1542C as to an old newsgroup posting from myself (I
> had problems with that drive originally as well).
> The 1542C recognizes a disk and the tape drive.
> But when NT boots, it takes several minutes during the blue screen
> while the tape's and the contoller's LEDs are blinking alternately for
> several seconds. Suddenly it will go on booting (dotted line on blue
> screen).
> 
> But in NT no devices on the Adaptec SCSI bus are reported and no tape
> driver is loaded, the disk is not present (the contoller reported it
> as D: while initiliazing and D: is not used otherwise).
> 
> Both devices are connected internally on the same cable.
> I also tried on device at a time (with terminators installed on the
> disk) and a 2 different cables.
> 
> Anybody got any idea as to what might be wrong?
> 
> I'm sure it had worked before... but years ago...
> 
> Thanks for any hint!

You probably need the NT4 drivers for the 1542c controller.  They might
be on the NT4 install disk and might also be available for download from
Adaptec. 

It should also be possible to just boot from any Linux Live CD -- most
Linux kernels come with the drivers for the 1542c.

> 
> Regards,
> Harald Henkel
>                     

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                                                          

The driver for the Adaptec Controller is installed and started. But in
the SCSI applet in Control panel under the Adaptec controller it shows
"no devices" (and "no tape drives" in the tape drives applet)

Linux might be a solution for the disk, but not for the tape.
I dont't want to make backups of the disks to the tape, but I want to
restore backups (to an external) disk, which were made using NT
Backup.

Sorry, if I haven't been clear enough.

On 12 Mai, 16:40, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Tue, 12 May 2009 06:38:07 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Hi all.
>
> > I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
>
> > Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was removed.
> > But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu disks
> > with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.
>
> > Terminators are present at the tape.
> > I configured the 1542C as to an old newsgroup posting from myself (I
> > had problems with that drive originally as well).
> > The 1542C recognizes a disk and the tape drive.
> > But when NT boots, it takes several minutes during the blue screen
> > while the tape's and the contoller's LEDs are blinking alternately for
> > several seconds. Suddenly it will go on booting (dotted line on blue
> > screen).
>
> > But in NT no devices on the Adaptec SCSI bus are reported and no tape
> > driver is loaded, the disk is not present (the contoller reported it
> > as D: while initiliazing and D: is not used otherwise).
>
> > Both devices are connected internally on the same cable.
> > I also tried on device at a time (with terminators installed on the
> > disk) and a 2 different cables.
>
> > Anybody got any idea as to what might be wrong?
>
> > I'm sure it had worked before... but years ago...
>
> > Thanks for any hint!
>
> You probably need the NT4 drivers for the 1542c controller. =A0They might
> be on the NT4 install disk and might also be available for download from
> Adaptec.
>
> It should also be possible to just boot from any Linux Live CD -- most
> Linux kernels come with the drivers for the 1542c.
>
>
>
> > Regards,
> > Harald Henkel
>
> --
> Robert Heller =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Download the Model Railroad Systemht=
tp://www.deepsoft.com/=A0-- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
> hel...@deepsoft.com =A0 =A0 =A0 --http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSy=
stem/

Check System in event log first.
You've probably got an resource conflict. I recall COM/LPT was common.
Non PnP devices have to reserved in the BIOS (IRQ & DMA).

Could also be a chipset that does not do ISA bus mastering.

<harald.henkel.dah@web.de> wrote in message 
news:a819466e-52ea-4955-97ce-9891832fa241@b1g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
> Hi all.
>
> I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
>
> Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was removed.
> But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu disks
> with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.
> 

On 12 Mai, 22:02, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> Check System in event log first.
> You've probably got an resource conflict. I recall COM/LPT was common.
> Non PnP devices have to reserved in the BIOS (IRQ & DMA).
>
> Could also be a chipset that does not do ISA bus mastering.
>
> <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>

Ok, I checked the resources but didn't find anything wrong.
I could write all the information down into a posting, but didn't have
time for this, this morning.
The NT4 Device Manager doesn't show conflicts, or if it would show
them, there would seem to be none.

I once had a SoundBaster Card in that PC, which I had removed "some
time" ago, while the sndblst service/driver was still on SYSTEM and
caused an error message in event log, not being loaded successfully.
I deactivated it today, but this didn't help.

After booting, there are two error messages about some bogus DHCP
messages (type 042, length 4 or such), one before the EventLog Start
message, one after.
Then come 21 messages that device \device\ScsiPort1 didn't respond in
timeout time, which might respond to the "blinking" LEDs.
Then come a couple of messages about the successful start of some
services for my Teles ISDN card, which I don't really need anymore.
I'll remove that one this evening and try again.
Lastly comes the message about not successfully started services (only
tandtape now).

Could it still be the SCSI cable? I tried with 3 different, but they
are all old and might have got broken will laying arround in some
boxes and getting scrubled...

I'll also check the BIOS settings thorrowly, which I didn't until now.


> news:a819466e-52ea-4955-97ce-9891832fa241@b1g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Hi all.
>
> > I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
>
> > Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was removed.
> > But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu disks
> > with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.

harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:
> 
> The driver for the Adaptec Controller is installed and started. But in
> the SCSI applet in Control panel under the Adaptec controller it shows
> "no devices" (and "no tape drives" in the tape drives applet)
> 
> Linux might be a solution for the disk, but not for the tape.
> I dont't want to make backups of the disks to the tape, but I want to
> restore backups (to an external) disk, which were made using NT
> Backup.
> 
> Sorry, if I haven't been clear enough.

Even if you cannot use Linux for data backup you can use it to verify
whether the Adaptec HA is working correctly in your machine. Maybe it
gives you a better error message than "no drives found" if this is not
the case ...


Micha

At Wed, 13 May 2009 01:03:08 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> On 12 Mai, 22:02, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > Check System in event log first.
> > You've probably got an resource conflict. I recall COM/LPT was common.
> > Non PnP devices have to reserved in the BIOS (IRQ & DMA).
> >
> > Could also be a chipset that does not do ISA bus mastering.
> >
> > <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
> >
> 
> Ok, I checked the resources but didn't find anything wrong.
> I could write all the information down into a posting, but didn't have
> time for this, this morning.
> The NT4 Device Manager doesn't show conflicts, or if it would show
> them, there would seem to be none.

I wouldn't look in the NT4 Device Manager, but in the BIOS.

The AHA-1542 is NOT a PnP device -- you need to reserve its IRQ in the
BIOS.  Also, the 1542 includes a floppy controller -- if there is a
floppy controller on the motherboard, you need to disable the floppy
controller on the 1542 -- there is a jumper for that I believe.

> 
> I once had a SoundBaster Card in that PC, which I had removed "some
> time" ago, while the sndblst service/driver was still on SYSTEM and
> caused an error message in event log, not being loaded successfully.
> I deactivated it today, but this didn't help.
> 
> After booting, there are two error messages about some bogus DHCP
> messages (type 042, length 4 or such), one before the EventLog Start
> message, one after.
> Then come 21 messages that device \device\ScsiPort1 didn't respond in
> timeout time, which might respond to the "blinking" LEDs.
> Then come a couple of messages about the successful start of some
> services for my Teles ISDN card, which I don't really need anymore.
> I'll remove that one this evening and try again.
> Lastly comes the message about not successfully started services (only
> tandtape now).
> 
> Could it still be the SCSI cable? I tried with 3 different, but they
> are all old and might have got broken will laying arround in some
> boxes and getting scrubled...
> 
> I'll also check the BIOS settings thorrowly, which I didn't until now.
> 
> 
> > news:a819466e-52ea-4955-97ce-9891832fa241@b1g2000vbc.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > > Hi all.
> >
> > > I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
> >
> > > Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was removed.
> > > But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu disks
> > > with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.
> 
>                                                                                                 

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
         

On 13 Mai, 12:20, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Wed, 13 May 2009 01:03:08 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 12 Mai, 22:02, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > > Check System in event log first.
> > > You've probably got an resource conflict. I recall COM/LPT was common=
..
> > > Non PnP devices have to reserved in the BIOS (IRQ & DMA).
>
> > > Could also be a chipset that does not do ISA bus mastering.
>
> > > <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> > Ok, I checked the resources but didn't find anything wrong.
> > I could write all the information down into a posting, but didn't have
> > time for this, this morning.
> > The NT4 Device Manager doesn't show conflicts, or if it would show
> > them, there would seem to be none.
>
> I wouldn't look in the NT4 Device Manager, but in the BIOS.
>
> The AHA-1542 is NOT a PnP device -- you need to reserve its IRQ in the
> BIOS. =A0Also, the 1542 includes a floppy controller -- if there is a
> floppy controller on the motherboard, you need to disable the floppy
> controller on the 1542 -- there is a jumper for that I believe.

I know this. The 1542 floppy controller is already disabled.
The IO-Port-Address is set to 330 via switches, IRQ and memory address
are set via Scsi-Select (Adapter BIOS).
WinNT report all the addresses, ports, irq of my installed cards and
there seems to be no conflict.

I will check the BIOS anyway this evening (as already stated above).

>
>
>
>
>
> > I once had a SoundBaster Card in that PC, which I had removed "some
> > time" ago, while the sndblst service/driver was still on SYSTEM and
> > caused an error message in event log, not being loaded successfully.
> > I deactivated it today, but this didn't help.
>
> > After booting, there are two error messages about some bogus DHCP
> > messages (type 042, length 4 or such), one before the EventLog Start
> > message, one after.
> > Then come 21 messages that device \device\ScsiPort1 didn't respond in
> > timeout time, which might respond to the "blinking" LEDs.
> > Then come a couple of messages about the successful start of some
> > services for my Teles ISDN card, which I don't really need anymore.
> > I'll remove that one this evening and try again.
> > Lastly comes the message about not successfully started services (only
> > tandtape now).
>
> > Could it still be the SCSI cable? I tried with 3 different, but they
> > are all old and might have got broken will laying arround in some
> > boxes and getting scrubled...
>
> > I'll also check the BIOS settings thorrowly, which I didn't until now.
>
> > >news:a819466e-52ea-4955-97ce-9891832fa241@b1g2000vbc.googlegroups.com.=
...
>
> > > > Hi all.
>
> > > > I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
>
> > > > Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was remove=
d.
> > > > But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu di=
sks
> > > > with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.
>
> --
> Robert Heller =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Download the Model Railroad Systemht=
tp://www.deepsoft.com/=A0-- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
> hel...@deepsoft.com =A0 =A0 =A0 --http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSy=
stem/

On 13 Mai, 11:23, Michael Baeuerle <michael.baeue...@stz-e.de> wrote:
> harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
>
> > The driver for the Adaptec Controller is installed and started. But in
> > the SCSI applet in Control panel under the Adaptec controller it shows
> > "no devices" (and "no tape drives" in the tape drives applet)
>
> > Linux might be a solution for the disk, but not for the tape.
> > I dont't want to make backups of the disks to the tape, but I want to
> > restore backups (to an external) disk, which were made using NT
> > Backup.
>
> > Sorry, if I haven't been clear enough.
>
> Even if you cannot use Linux for data backup you can use it to verify
> whether the Adaptec HA is working correctly in your machine. Maybe it
> gives you a better error message than "no drives found" if this is not
> the case ...
>
> Micha

Thanks for that hint. I will try this, if the BIOS check doesn't give
any results.
I have some old SuseLinux 7 installed on a partion of my IDE drive
anyway, but I need to boot it with a diskette (didn't install the boot
loader on my HD) and I hope I find that diskette and its still
readable.

Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
that it overflowed...

I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)

On 13 Mai, 13:56, harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> On 13 Mai, 12:20, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > At Wed, 13 May 2009 01:03:08 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote=
:
>
> > > On 12 Mai, 22:02, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > > > Check System in event log first.
> > > > You've probably got an resource conflict. I recall COM/LPT was comm=
on.
> > > > Non PnP devices have to reserved in the BIOS (IRQ & DMA).
>
> > > > Could also be a chipset that does not do ISA bus mastering.
>
> > > > <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> > > Ok, I checked the resources but didn't find anything wrong.
> > > I could write all the information down into a posting, but didn't hav=
e
> > > time for this, this morning.
> > > The NT4 Device Manager doesn't show conflicts, or if it would show
> > > them, there would seem to be none.
>
> > I wouldn't look in the NT4 Device Manager, but in the BIOS.
>
> > The AHA-1542 is NOT a PnP device -- you need to reserve its IRQ in the
> > BIOS. =A0Also, the 1542 includes a floppy controller -- if there is a
> > floppy controller on the motherboard, you need to disable the floppy
> > controller on the 1542 -- there is a jumper for that I believe.
>
> I know this. The 1542 floppy controller is already disabled.
> The IO-Port-Address is set to 330 via switches, IRQ and memory address
> are set via Scsi-Select (Adapter BIOS).
> WinNT report all the addresses, ports, irq of my installed cards and
> there seems to be no conflict.
>
> I will check the BIOS anyway this evening (as already stated above).
>
>
>
> > > I once had a SoundBaster Card in that PC, which I had removed "some
> > > time" ago, while the sndblst service/driver was still on SYSTEM and
> > > caused an error message in event log, not being loaded successfully.
> > > I deactivated it today, but this didn't help.
>
> > > After booting, there are two error messages about some bogus DHCP
> > > messages (type 042, length 4 or such), one before the EventLog Start
> > > message, one after.
> > > Then come 21 messages that device \device\ScsiPort1 didn't respond in
> > > timeout time, which might respond to the "blinking" LEDs.
> > > Then come a couple of messages about the successful start of some
> > > services for my Teles ISDN card, which I don't really need anymore.
> > > I'll remove that one this evening and try again.
> > > Lastly comes the message about not successfully started services (onl=
y
> > > tandtape now).
>
> > > Could it still be the SCSI cable? I tried with 3 different, but they
> > > are all old and might have got broken will laying arround in some
> > > boxes and getting scrubled...
>
> > > I'll also check the BIOS settings thorrowly, which I didn't until now=
..
>
> > > >news:a819466e-52ea-4955-97ce-9891832fa241@b1g2000vbc.googlegroups.co=
m...
>
> > > > > Hi all.
>
> > > > > I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
>
> > > > > Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was remo=
ved.
> > > > > But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujitsu =
disks
> > > > > with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 3660.
>
> > --
> > Robert Heller =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -- 978-544-6933
> > Deepwoods Software =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Download the Model Railroad System=
http://www.deepsoft.com/=A0-- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
> > hel...@deepsoft.com =A0 =A0 =A0 --http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroad=
System/

Today I tried the tape again.
The PC boots and the tape drive is recognized, but when trying to get
the catalog from a tape after a couple if minutes I receive an error
in EventLog Event-ID: 9, timeout for the \device\ScsiPort1
I tried to squeese some BIOS settings but nothing worked so far.
BTW, the mainboard is an ASUS P/I55T2P4.

Anybody got ideas, what could still be wrong?

On 13 Mai, 19:13, harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
> all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
> Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
> On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
> partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
> The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
> Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
> In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
> that it overflowed...
>
> I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)
>
> On 13 Mai, 13:56, harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
>
> > On 13 Mai, 12:20, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
>
> > > At Wed, 13 May 2009 01:03:08 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wro=
te:
>
> > > > On 12 Mai, 22:02, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > > > > Check System in event log first.
> > > > > You've probably got an resource conflict. I recall COM/LPT was co=
mmon.
> > > > > Non PnP devices have to reserved in the BIOS (IRQ & DMA).
>
> > > > > Could also be a chipset that does not do ISA bus mastering.
>
> > > > > <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> > > > Ok, I checked the resources but didn't find anything wrong.
> > > > I could write all the information down into a posting, but didn't h=
ave
> > > > time for this, this morning.
> > > > The NT4 Device Manager doesn't show conflicts, or if it would show
> > > > them, there would seem to be none.
>
> > > I wouldn't look in the NT4 Device Manager, but in the BIOS.
>
> > > The AHA-1542 is NOT a PnP device -- you need to reserve its IRQ in th=
e
> > > BIOS. =A0Also, the 1542 includes a floppy controller -- if there is a
> > > floppy controller on the motherboard, you need to disable the floppy
> > > controller on the 1542 -- there is a jumper for that I believe.
>
> > I know this. The 1542 floppy controller is already disabled.
> > The IO-Port-Address is set to 330 via switches, IRQ and memory address
> > are set via Scsi-Select (Adapter BIOS).
> > WinNT report all the addresses, ports, irq of my installed cards and
> > there seems to be no conflict.
>
> > I will check the BIOS anyway this evening (as already stated above).
>
> > > > I once had a SoundBaster Card in that PC, which I had removed "some
> > > > time" ago, while the sndblst service/driver was still on SYSTEM and
> > > > caused an error message in event log, not being loaded successfully=
..
> > > > I deactivated it today, but this didn't help.
>
> > > > After booting, there are two error messages about some bogus DHCP
> > > > messages (type 042, length 4 or such), one before the EventLog Star=
t
> > > > message, one after.
> > > > Then come 21 messages that device \device\ScsiPort1 didn't respond =
in
> > > > timeout time, which might respond to the "blinking" LEDs.
> > > > Then come a couple of messages about the successful start of some
> > > > services for my Teles ISDN card, which I don't really need anymore.
> > > > I'll remove that one this evening and try again.
> > > > Lastly comes the message about not successfully started services (o=
nly
> > > > tandtape now).
>
> > > > Could it still be the SCSI cable? I tried with 3 different, but the=
y
> > > > are all old and might have got broken will laying arround in some
> > > > boxes and getting scrubled...
>
> > > > I'll also check the BIOS settings thorrowly, which I didn't until n=
ow.
>
> > > > >news:a819466e-52ea-4955-97ce-9891832fa241@b1g2000vbc.googlegroups.=
com...
>
> > > > > > Hi all.
>
> > > > > > I have an old PC with an Adaptec 1542C and an IDE disk.
>
> > > > > > Recently only the IDE disk was connected and the Adaptec was re=
moved.
> > > > > > But now I want to make backups from my old SCSI disks (2 Fujits=
u disks
> > > > > > with arround 400 and 1080MB!) and my SCSI tape Tandberg TDC 366=
0.
>
> > > --
> > > Robert Heller =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -- 978-544-6933
> > > Deepwoods Software =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Download the Model Railroad Syst=
emhttp://www.deepsoft.com/=A0-- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
> > > hel...@deepsoft.com =A0 =A0 =A0 --http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailro=
adSystem/

It's an ISA bus-mastering device, which is not well supported by PCI-ISA bridges.
You are seeing data corruption. There is a bus-speed setting: 10/8/... MB/s, maybe it's too high.

<harald.henkel.dah@web.de> wrote in message 
news:b30f5697-3b4c-418f-9e12-6a6f20531a3a@x6g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
that it overflowed...

I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)

Ok. I tweeked all switches in the BIOS which affect PCI and/or ISA
bus.
Nothing helped. I also tried my third SCSI cable... neither.

What I didn't tell you up to now is, I also have an external DAT tape
drive with a couple of tapes I want to restore, but, I planned to
spare up that one until after restoring the disks and the QIC tapes.

Now, yesterday I tried this one and what shall I say, it works just
fine, with "default" BIOS settings (of course those for the ISA bus
resources for the Adaptec not changed).
I just restores the 4th DAT tape without any problem, not even a
single unreadable file, and that although the tapes are between 9 and
12 years old.
BTW, the disk where I restore the data to is an USB device connected
to my DSL router (Frtitz!Box 7270) connected to the PC by CAT5 cable
to simple PCI network card.
So there is obviously no conflict between ISA and PCI either.

But what could still be the problem for the timeout (Event-ID:9) while
cataloging a tape in the QIC.
I'm sure that the devices are all terminated properly.
Only no grounding is attached at the moment. Could this be a problem?
I tried 3 different SCSI cables. And it is difficult to get such
cables now...

Any ideas left?

On 15 Mai, 04:57, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> It's an ISA bus-mastering device, which is not well supported by PCI-ISA bridges.
> You are seeing data corruption. There is a bus-speed setting: 10/8/... MB/s, maybe it's too high.
>
> <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> news:b30f5697-3b4c-418f-9e12-6a6f20531a3a@x6g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
> Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
> all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
> Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
> On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
> partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
> The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
> Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
> In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
> that it overflowed...
>
> I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)

Ok. I tweeked all switches in the BIOS which affect PCI and/or ISA
bus.
Nothing helped. I also tried my third SCSI cable... neither.

What I didn't tell you up to now is, I also have an external DAT tape
drive with a couple of tapes I want to restore, but, I planned to
spare up that one until after restoring the disks and the QIC tapes.

Now, yesterday I tried this one and what shall I say, it works just
fine, with "default" BIOS settings (of course those for the ISA bus
resources for the Adaptec not changed).
I just restores the 4th DAT tape without any problem, not even a
single unreadable file, and that although the tapes are between 9 and
12 years old.
BTW, the disk where I restore the data to is an USB device connected
to my DSL router (Frtitz!Box 7270) connected to the PC by CAT5 cable
to simple PCI network card.
So there is obviously no conflict between ISA and PCI either.

But what could still be the problem for the timeout (Event-ID:9) while
cataloging a tape in the QIC.
I'm sure that the devices are all terminated properly.
Only no grounding is attached at the moment. Could this be a problem?
I tried 3 different SCSI cables. And it is difficult to get such
cables now...

Any ideas left?

On 15 Mai, 04:57, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> It's an ISA bus-mastering device, which is not well supported by PCI-ISA bridges.
> You are seeing data corruption. There is a bus-speed setting: 10/8/... MB/s, maybe it's too high.
>
> <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> news:b30f5697-3b4c-418f-9e12-6a6f20531a3a@x6g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
> Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
> all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
> Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
> On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
> partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
> The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
> Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
> In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
> that it overflowed...
>
> I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)

Ok. I tweeked all switches in the BIOS which affect PCI and/or ISA
bus.
Nothing helped. I also tried my third SCSI cable... neither.

What I didn't tell you up to now is, I also have an external DAT tape
drive with a couple of tapes I want to restore, but, I planned to
spare up that one until after restoring the disks and the QIC tapes.

Now, yesterday I tried this one and what shall I say, it works just
fine, with "default" BIOS settings (of course those for the ISA bus
resources for the Adaptec not changed).
I just restores the 4th DAT tape without any problem, not even a
single unreadable file, and that although the tapes are between 9 and
12 years old.
BTW, the disk where I restore the data to is an USB device connected
to my DSL router (Frtitz!Box 7270) connected to the PC by CAT5 cable
to simple PCI network card.
So there is obviously no conflict between ISA and PCI either.

But what could still be the problem for the timeout (Event-ID:9) while
cataloging a tape in the QIC.
I'm sure that the devices are all terminated properly.
Only no grounding is attached at the moment. Could this be a problem?
I tried 3 different SCSI cables. And it is difficult to get such
cables now...

Any ideas left?

On 15 Mai, 04:57, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> It's an ISA bus-mastering device, which is not well supported by PCI-ISA bridges.
> You are seeing data corruption. There is a bus-speed setting: 10/8/... MB/s, maybe it's too high.
>
> <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> news:b30f5697-3b4c-418f-9e12-6a6f20531a3a@x6g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
> Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
> all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
> Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
> On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
> partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
> The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
> Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
> In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
> that it overflowed...
>
> I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)

At Sat, 16 May 2009 04:23:52 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> Ok. I tweeked all switches in the BIOS which affect PCI and/or ISA
> bus.
> Nothing helped. I also tried my third SCSI cable... neither.
> 
> What I didn't tell you up to now is, I also have an external DAT tape
> drive with a couple of tapes I want to restore, but, I planned to
> spare up that one until after restoring the disks and the QIC tapes.
> 
> Now, yesterday I tried this one and what shall I say, it works just
> fine, with "default" BIOS settings (of course those for the ISA bus
> resources for the Adaptec not changed).
> I just restores the 4th DAT tape without any problem, not even a
> single unreadable file, and that although the tapes are between 9 and
> 12 years old.
> BTW, the disk where I restore the data to is an USB device connected
> to my DSL router (Frtitz!Box 7270) connected to the PC by CAT5 cable
> to simple PCI network card.
> So there is obviously no conflict between ISA and PCI either.
> 
> But what could still be the problem for the timeout (Event-ID:9) while
> cataloging a tape in the QIC.
> I'm sure that the devices are all terminated properly.
> Only no grounding is attached at the moment. Could this be a problem?
> I tried 3 different SCSI cables. And it is difficult to get such
> cables now...
> 
> Any ideas left?

1) The QIC tape drive is dirty and/or the belts & rollers are
worn/cracked or the head is magnetized, etc.  Maybe a cleaning is in
order.  You may need to replace belts and/or rollers.  The 'rubber' (not
really rubber, but some synthetic replacement) goes 'bad' over time.
2) The QIC tapes are bad (stored too close to a strong magnetic field?).
3) Also, the internal SCSI disks may also be bad (you mentioned that you
were getting disk I/O errors).  Again this could be anything from
'sticky' bearing lube (on some drives the spindle bearing lube can turn
to something more like glue over time) to mechaninal problems (were the
disks dropped or otherwise banged around durring storage?).

You DAT drive and tapes are (obviously) much newer and are therefore in
good condition, so everything worked.  This suggests that the AHA-1542
card is working just fine (no real supprise here -- *silicon* does not
generally suffer from 'age', unlike machanical devices or magnetic media).

> 
> On 15 Mai, 04:57, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > It's an ISA bus-mastering device, which is not well supported by PCI-ISA bridges.
> > You are seeing data corruption. There is a bus-speed setting: 10/8/... MB/s, maybe it's too high.
> >
> > <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
> >
> > news:b30f5697-3b4c-418f-9e12-6a6f20531a3a@x6g2000vbg.googlegroups.com...
> > Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also reset
> > all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
> > Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems.
> > On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
> > partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
> > The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
> > Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
> > In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
> > that it overflowed...
> >
> > I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)
> 
>           

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                                                                                        

On 16 Mai, 14:45, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Sat, 16 May 2009 04:23:52 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > Ok. I tweeked all switches in the BIOS which affect PCI and/or ISA
> > bus.
> > Nothing helped. I also tried my third SCSI cable... neither.
>
> > What I didn't tell you up to now is, I also have an external DAT tape
> > drive with a couple of tapes I want to restore, but, I planned to
> > spare up that one until after restoring the disks and the QIC tapes.
>
> > Now, yesterday I tried this one and what shall I say, it works just
> > fine, with "default" BIOS settings (of course those for the ISA bus
> > resources for the Adaptec not changed).
> > I just restores the 4th DAT tape without any problem, not even a
> > single unreadable file, and that although the tapes are between 9 and
> > 12 years old.
> > BTW, the disk where I restore the data to is an USB device connected
> > to my DSL router (Frtitz!Box 7270) connected to the PC by CAT5 cable
> > to simple PCI network card.
> > So there is obviously no conflict between ISA and PCI either.
>
> > But what could still be the problem for the timeout (Event-ID:9) while
> > cataloging a tape in the QIC.
> > I'm sure that the devices are all terminated properly.
> > Only no grounding is attached at the moment. Could this be a problem?
> > I tried 3 different SCSI cables. And it is difficult to get such
> > cables now...
>
> > Any ideas left?
>
> 1) The QIC tape drive is dirty and/or the belts & rollers are
> worn/cracked or the head is magnetized, etc. =A0Maybe a cleaning is in
> order. =A0You may need to replace belts and/or rollers. =A0The 'rubber' (=
not
> really rubber, but some synthetic replacement) goes 'bad' over time.
> 2) The QIC tapes are bad (stored too close to a strong magnetic field?).
> 3) Also, the internal SCSI disks may also be bad (you mentioned that you
> were getting disk I/O errors). =A0Again this could be anything from
> 'sticky' bearing lube (on some drives the spindle bearing lube can turn
> to something more like glue over time) to mechaninal problems (were the
> disks dropped or otherwise banged around durring storage?).
>
> You DAT drive and tapes are (obviously) much newer and are therefore in
> good condition, so everything worked. =A0This suggests that the AHA-1542
> card is working just fine (no real supprise here -- *silicon* does not
> generally suffer from 'age', unlike machanical devices or magnetic media)=
..
>
>
>
>
>
> > On 15 Mai, 04:57, "Eric Gisin" <gi...@uniserve.com> wrote:
> > > It's an ISA bus-mastering device, which is not well supported by PCI-=
ISA bridges.
> > > You are seeing data corruption. There is a bus-speed setting: 10/8/..=
.. MB/s, maybe it's too high.
>
> > > <harald.henkel....@web.de> wrote in message
>
> > >news:b30f5697-3b4c-418f-9e12-6a6f20531a3a@x6g2000vbg.googlegroups.com.=
...
> > > Ok. It was the BIOS. When I removed the 1542 from the PC, I also rese=
t
> > > all the BIOS settings for the ISA-Bus etc.
Ok. What should I say...

Up until today, the first thing what I tried with a tape in the QIC
was always "Cataloging", lathough the first backup set was found.
Today I just tried to restore that first backup set and ... it works
(just restoring the second tape).

Then I did some google search an found this:
http://kbalertz.com/124803/Multiple-Backups-First-Displayed.aspx

So probably all backup sets beond the first on each tape may be lost,
but there is some chance, that I allways only have one backup set on
the QICs anyway.

Of course I use NT4, but it might well be, that the QIC tapes were all
recorded with NT 3.5 (or even 3.1).

So, if also the QIC drive works, while the HDs do not, it might well
be, that the HDs are really lost due to HW failure.
But I think, that I backed those up anyway, before I removed them some
9 years ago, probably on the DAT tape.

> > > Not it goes boots quickly, but it seems there are still some problems=
..
> > > On booting, NT wanted to make a chkdsk and found most of D: (a FAT
> > > partition to be corrupt, moving clusters and deleting directories).
> > > The second drive (should be NTFS) I didn't let the chkdsk run.
> > > Filemanager sees the two drives, but couldn't access them.
> > > In the EventLog there are so many error messages regarding that disk,
> > > that it overflowed...
>
> > > I will check BIOS further, when I have time... :-)
>
> --
> Robert Heller =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0 -- 978-544-6933
> Deepwoods Software =A0 =A0 =A0 =A0-- Download the Model Railroad Systemht=
tp://www.deepsoft.com/=A0-- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
> hel...@deepsoft.com =A0 =A0 =A0 --http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSy=
stem/

In article <319548b2-5686-4a23-9f33-fad24681b45c@z7g2000vbh.googlegroups
..com>, harald.henkel.dah@web.de writes

>Up until today, the first thing what I tried with a tape in the QIC
>was always "Cataloging", lathough the first backup set was found.
>Today I just tried to restore that first backup set and ... it works
>(just restoring the second tape).

Have you tried retensioning the first tape (the one with the catalogue
on it)?

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 17 Mai, 22:28, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> In article <319548b2-5686-4a23-9f33-fad24681b...@z7g2000vbh.googlegroups
> .com>, harald.henkel....@web.de writes
>
> >Up until today, the first thing what I tried with a tape in the QIC
> >was always "Cataloging", lathough the first backup set was found.
> >Today I just tried to restore that first backup set and ... it works
> >(just restoring the second tape).
>
> Have you tried retensioning the first tape (the one with the catalogue
> on it)?

I think there might be some misunderstanding here.
Almost all of my problems are solved now.

I think I only have tapes with one or more backup sets on it, but not
backupset going over more than one tape.
I a logical drive was bigger than the tape, then I split it up
manually be de-selecting some directories and backing up the remaining
ones on a different tape.

The only problem is, that for some reason, NT doens't recognize all
record sets, when there are more than one on a QIC tape.

I think, I knew this already 10+ years ago - and because of this only
had only one record set per tape - but had forgotten it.

Yet, I found yesterday (after my previous posting) one tape with two
record sets, which NT Backup could catalogue - and restore - and one
tape where NT Backup told me, that the tape contains only already
catalogued record sets (i.e. the first), while on most tapes NT Backup
returns with an error at the end of the tape in the catalogueing
operation.

I already restored 6 out of 14 tapes.

One strange thing happend on two tapes. There NT Backup told me, that
the record sets are compressed and connot be catalogued or restored.
This is strange, because NT Backup doen't give me the option to
compress backups, as far as I can see - well I didn't try to make a
backup lately, so I didn't check the backup dialog, if there is such
an option.
But if there would be one, why shouldn't it be able to resore it?
I read somewhere, that NT Backup should have such an option, but only
for hardware compression, i.e. by the tape drive itself, if it
supports it.
Could it be, that NT Backup of NT 3.1 or 3.5 had that option and NT4
version cannot resore those tapes?

But it could also be, that these two (or more) tapes I recoreded
earlier under DOS/Windows 3.1 with the Backup program of "PC Tools" (I
think) which I used before to backup on 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppies.
I know, that I had the SCSI controller running under DOS (back then it
had a 486 mainborad)...

>
> --
> (\__/) =A0
> (=3D'.'=3D) =A0Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
> (")_(") =A0http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

Ok.
I restored 11 tapes, but for 3 tapes NT Backup tells me, the (first)
set cannot be catalogued or restored, because it is compressed.

My assumption was, that those tapes are from Central Point PC Tools
Backup (i.e. CPBackup) (Version ?) made backups.
So I downloaded PC Tools Pro 9 (for free, it's amazing what software
you can find now for free), installed it on my DOS installation/
partition.
It recognized the still installed ASPI driver and the two tape drives.
But it tells me the 3 tapes are not created by CPBackup.

Is the tape format different for different versions of CPBackup
(6,7,8,9, Win1, Win2)?
Is there any chance it was still made using NT Backup?

There is also a little chance, that those tapes were written by some
simple Linux tools (probably not a backup program but something like
tar).

Yet, NT Backup shows me the backup set names/descriptions which are in
line with those I choose for the other 11 tapes.
Is it likely that NT Backup could show such descriptions, if the
backup set was made with some different software (CPBackup, tar)?
After all CPBackup shows me nothing!

At Wed, 20 May 2009 11:20:33 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> Ok.
> I restored 11 tapes, but for 3 tapes NT Backup tells me, the (first)
> set cannot be catalogued or restored, because it is compressed.
> 
> My assumption was, that those tapes are from Central Point PC Tools
> Backup (i.e. CPBackup) (Version ?) made backups.
> So I downloaded PC Tools Pro 9 (for free, it's amazing what software
> you can find now for free), installed it on my DOS installation/
> partition.
> It recognized the still installed ASPI driver and the two tape drives.
> But it tells me the 3 tapes are not created by CPBackup.
> 
> Is the tape format different for different versions of CPBackup
> (6,7,8,9, Win1, Win2)?
> Is there any chance it was still made using NT Backup?
> 
> There is also a little chance, that those tapes were written by some
> simple Linux tools (probably not a backup program but something like
> tar).
> 
> Yet, NT Backup shows me the backup set names/descriptions which are in
> line with those I choose for the other 11 tapes.
> Is it likely that NT Backup could show such descriptions, if the
> backup set was made with some different software (CPBackup, tar)?
> After all CPBackup shows me nothing!

*If* NT Backup is implementing the (old) Reel-to-reel 'labeled tapes'
format it might, *IF* the other backup tool is ALSO using the (old)
Reel-to-reel 'labeled tapes' format.  Too big IFs and a big also -- none
of which are likely.  So it seems more likely that there is another flavor
of NT Backup floating around somewhere in your past...  One that creates
compressed NT Backup sets.  Or else the tapes are crupted somehow.

>                                          

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                       

In article <40046ef0-92aa-4ac8-891e-e0733f503530@r34g2000vbi.googlegroup
s.com>, harald.henkel.dah@web.de writes

>I restored 11 tapes, but for 3 tapes NT Backup tells me, the (first)
>set cannot be catalogued or restored, because it is compressed.

What's the precise error message it gives?

>My assumption was, that those tapes are from Central Point PC Tools
>Backup (i.e. CPBackup) (Version ?) made backups.

Ooh, I remember that.  It was _very_ useful for spanning floppies.

>It recognized the still installed ASPI driver and the two tape drives.
>But it tells me the 3 tapes are not created by CPBackup.

ok.

>Is the tape format different for different versions of CPBackup
>(6,7,8,9, Win1, Win2)?

Maybe.  I remember having trouble with different versions of CPBackup
and having to keep a copy of the program used to make floppy sets with
each set because of version incompatibilities.  Don't know whather that
applies to tapes though.

>Is there any chance it was still made using NT Backup?

Well, as you say later, NT backup recognises the tapes and their labels
and descriptions, they were probably written with that.

Is it possible that the tape drive has been changed or had hardware
compression disabled?  (I can't remember if QIC drives supported
hardware compression.)  i.e. could this be a _hardware_ compression
problem?

>There is also a little chance, that those tapes were written by some
>simple Linux tools (probably not a backup program but something like
>tar).

There's plenty of free Windows tar utilities.  A "tar -tv //./tape0"
will soon tell you.  There's a choice of graphical ones and command line
ones.  

I installed one called Tar98 years ago, just found it and it still seems
to work (on XP), but I don't have a tape drive installed any more.  (It
looks for a Windows device //./tape0, so if you have that, it should
work.)  It comes with utilities called Tapedump, Tapefeatures, and
Tapeutility which might be useful.

>Is it likely that NT Backup could show such descriptions, if the
>backup set was made with some different software (CPBackup, tar)?

Very unlikely in my opinion.  NTBackup usually says something along the
lines of "unrecognized, unformatted or blank tape" when it encounters a
tape format it doesn't recognise.

Can you boot a Linux live CD and do a "file /dev/st0"?  That may give
you some clues.

Oh, and do write-protect the tape :o)

Good luck.

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 21 Mai, 08:31, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> In article <40046ef0-92aa-4ac8-891e-e0733f503...@r34g2000vbi.googlegroup
> s.com>, harald.henkel....@web.de writes
>
> >I restored 11 tapes, but for 3 tapes NT Backup tells me, the (first)
> >set cannot be catalogued or restored, because it is compressed.
>
> What's the precise error message it gives?

Ok, some new information.
Today I restored NTBackup from WinNT 3.1 and WinNT 3.5 installations.
While WinNT 3.5 shows the same message as the WinNT4 version (I'm
german and thus use german NT, so I can only give MY translations in
english):

Dieser Satz ist komprimiert und kann weder angezeigt noch
wiederhergestellt werden.
This set is compressed and cannot be displayed or restored.

The NTBackup of NT 3.1 says (this was the SDK version which apparently
was in english):

Images backups connot be viewed or restored.

While this could well be a translation error in the German NT version,
in the line descibing the backup set NT3.5 and 4 say:

E: Satz 1 Band 1 norm 04.10.97 14:33:19 E:\Privat...

While the 3.1 version says:

E: Set 1 Tape 1 image 04.10.97 14:33:19 E:\Privat...

So what to think about this?
I never heard of NTBackup doing Image Backups, although the is a /SNAP
command line option, but what that does, I don't really know.
Maybe I should go on asking this in some Windows NT forum?
Because its more a WinNT problem than a SCSI problem!?

>
> >My assumption was, that those tapes are from Central Point PC Tools
> >Backup (i.e. CPBackup) (Version ?) made backups.
>
> Ooh, I remember that. =A0It was _very_ useful for spanning floppies.
>
> >It recognized the still installed ASPI driver and the two tape drives.
> >But it tells me the 3 tapes are not created by CPBackup.
>
> ok.
>
> >Is the tape format different for different versions of CPBackup
> >(6,7,8,9, Win1, Win2)?
>
> Maybe. =A0I remember having trouble with different versions of CPBackup
> and having to keep a copy of the program used to make floppy sets with
> each set because of version incompatibilities. =A0Don't know whather that
> applies to tapes though.
>
> >Is there any chance it was still made using NT Backup?
>
> Well, as you say later, NT backup recognises the tapes and their labels
> and descriptions, they were probably written with that.
>
> Is it possible that the tape drive has been changed or had hardware
> compression disabled? =A0(I can't remember if QIC drives supported
> hardware compression.) =A0i.e. could this be a _hardware_ compression
> problem?
>
> >There is also a little chance, that those tapes were written by some
> >simple Linux tools (probably not a backup program but something like
> >tar).
>
> There's plenty of free Windows tar utilities. =A0A "tar -tv //./tape0"
> will soon tell you. =A0There's a choice of graphical ones and command lin=
e
> ones. =A0
>
> I installed one called Tar98 years ago, just found it and it still seems
> to work (on XP), but I don't have a tape drive installed any more. =A0(It
> looks for a Windows device //./tape0, so if you have that, it should
> work.) =A0It comes with utilities called Tapedump, Tapefeatures, and
> Tapeutility which might be useful.
>
> >Is it likely that NT Backup could show such descriptions, if the
> >backup set was made with some different software (CPBackup, tar)?
>
> Very unlikely in my opinion. =A0NTBackup usually says something along the
> lines of "unrecognized, unformatted or blank tape" when it encounters a
> tape format it doesn't recognise.
>
> Can you boot a Linux live CD and do a "file /dev/st0"? =A0That may give
> you some clues.
>
> Oh, and do write-protect the tape :o)
>
> Good luck.
>
> --
> (\__/) =A0
> (=3D'.'=3D) =A0Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
> (")_(") =A0http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 22 Mai, 09:51, harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> Images backups connot be viewed or restored.

Of course this should read:
Image backups connot be viewed or restored.

In article <aab93db5-24be-4e56-94cf-e51e68fc159c@i6g2000yqj.googlegroups
..com>, harald.henkel.dah@web.de writes

>Ok, some new information.
>Today I restored NTBackup from WinNT 3.1 and WinNT 3.5 installations.
>While WinNT 3.5 shows the same message as the WinNT4 version (I'm
>german and thus use german NT, so I can only give MY translations in
>english):
>
>Dieser Satz ist komprimiert und kann weder angezeigt noch
>wiederhergestellt werden.
>This set is compressed and cannot be displayed or restored.
>
>The NTBackup of NT 3.1 says (this was the SDK version which apparently
>was in english):
>
>Images backups connot be viewed or restored.
>
>While this could well be a translation error in the German NT version,
>in the line descibing the backup set NT3.5 and 4 say:
>
>E: Satz 1 Band 1 norm 04.10.97 14:33:19 E:\Privat...
>
>While the 3.1 version says:
>
>E: Set 1 Tape 1 image 04.10.97 14:33:19 E:\Privat...
>
>So what to think about this?

I was going to mention in my last reply, but forgot, that NTBackup isn't
written by Microsoft.  They bought in a backup utility from someone
else, but I can't remember who.  Programs like Backup Exec have changed
owners/hands so many times.

There were, round about that time, several competing backup utilities,
but Backup Exec and Novastor are the only ones I recall.

The point is, I'm starting to wonder, with NTBackup reporting that it
cannot restore image backups, whether you have a tape written by a
later, further developed, version of the program that was bought in and
labelled NT Backup, i.e. one that supports compression and image backup.

I did have a quick Google to se if I could find out which company
supplied NT Backup to M$ but couldn't spot it.  

Perhaps get a trial copy of Backup Exec and see what it makes of your
tapes?

>I never heard of NTBackup doing Image Backups, although the is a /SNAP
>command line option, but what that does, I don't really know.

Me neither.

>Maybe I should go on asking this in some Windows NT forum?
>Because its more a WinNT problem than a SCSI problem!?

I think a crosspost to a Windows group would be a good idea, yes.  It'd
be interesting to see how you get on.

M.

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 22 Mai, 10:08, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> I was going to mention in my last reply, but forgot, that NTBackup isn't
> written by Microsoft. =A0They bought in a backup utility from someone
> else, but I can't remember who. =A0Programs like Backup Exec have changed
> owners/hands so many times.
>
> There were, round about that time, several competing backup utilities,
> but Backup Exec and Novastor are the only ones I recall.
>
> The point is, I'm starting to wonder, with NTBackup reporting that it
> cannot restore image backups, whether you have a tape written by a
> later, further developed, version of the program that was bought in and
> labelled NT Backup, i.e. one that supports compression and image backup.
>
> I did have a quick Google to se if I could find out which company
> supplied NT Backup to M$ but couldn't spot it. =A0

Oh, that's an easy one:
NT 3.1, NT Backup shows in the About dialog "Backup Version 1.0
Revison 3.16 SCSI Tape 1.0 (c) 1993 Conner Software."
NT 3.5, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version
4.0 Copyright (c), 1993-1994 Arcada Software Inc."
NT 4, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version 4.0
Copyright (c), 1993-1996 Seagate Software Inc."

In article <f8a1c712-a869-49d6-a5e1-7da5dccd0fb7@k2g2000yql.googlegroups
..com>, harald.henkel.dah@web.de writes

>Oh, that's an easy one:
>NT 3.1, NT Backup shows in the About dialog "Backup Version 1.0
>Revison 3.16 SCSI Tape 1.0 (c) 1993 Conner Software."
>NT 3.5, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version
>4.0 Copyright (c), 1993-1994 Arcada Software Inc."
>NT 4, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version 4.0
>Copyright (c), 1993-1996 Seagate Software Inc."

That'll be Backup Exec then.  Nothing else it could be.  See if you can
find a version on http://www.oldversion.com/, if not, it shouldn't be
too hard to track down a copy.

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 05/22/09 04:49 am harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

>> I was going to mention in my last reply, but forgot, that NTBackup isn't
>> written by Microsoft.  They bought in a backup utility from someone
>> else, but I can't remember who.  Programs like Backup Exec have changed
>> owners/hands so many times.
>>
>> There were, round about that time, several competing backup utilities,
>> but Backup Exec and Novastor are the only ones I recall.
>>
>> The point is, I'm starting to wonder, with NTBackup reporting that it
>> cannot restore image backups, whether you have a tape written by a
>> later, further developed, version of the program that was bought in and
>> labelled NT Backup, i.e. one that supports compression and image backup.
>>
>> I did have a quick Google to se if I could find out which company
>> supplied NT Backup to M$ but couldn't spot it.
>
> Oh, that's an easy one:
> NT 3.1, NT Backup shows in the About dialog "Backup Version 1.0
> Revison 3.16 SCSI Tape 1.0 (c) 1993 Conner Software."
> NT 3.5, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version
> 4.0 Copyright (c), 1993-1994 Arcada Software Inc."
> NT 4, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version 4.0
> Copyright (c), 1993-1996 Seagate Software Inc."

Conner was eventually acquired by Seagate (perhaps by Arcada in the 
interim), so I'm not sure that they should be considered totally 
foreign. Of course it has happened that even within one company a new 
version of a program cannot use files created by an earlier version.

Perce

On 22 Mai, 18:28, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> In article <f8a1c712-a869-49d6-a5e1-7da5dccd0...@k2g2000yql.googlegroups
> .com>, harald.henkel....@web.de writes
>
> >Oh, that's an easy one:
> >NT 3.1, NT Backup shows in the About dialog "Backup Version 1.0
> >Revison 3.16 SCSI Tape 1.0 (c) 1993 Conner Software."
> >NT 3.5, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version
> >4.0 Copyright (c), 1993-1994 Arcada Software Inc."
> >NT 4, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version 4.0
> >Copyright (c), 1993-1996 Seagate Software Inc."
>
> That'll be Backup Exec then. =A0Nothing else it could be. =A0See if you c=
an
> find a version onhttp://www.oldversion.com/, if not, it shouldn't be
> too hard to track down a copy.

The strange thing is, I connot remember to have ever used anything
else then CPBackup (mainly floppies) and NTBackup.
Yet, there is some small chance, that I used some version of Backup
Exec I "copied" from work.

On www.oldversion.com I couldn't find ANY sort of backup software.
Maybe i'm blind...
I wasted all the day for searching for some backup/restore software,
that could read tapes written in compressed MTF (MS tape format)
format.
There are a lot of tools for reading (corrupted) BKF files, but only
from disk, which doesn't help me much.

I FOUND some backup programs, but they all didn't run on WinNT4.

>
> --
> (\__/) =A0
> (=3D'.'=3D) =A0Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
> (")_(") =A0http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

At Fri, 22 May 2009 10:31:06 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> On 22 Mai, 18:28, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> > In article <f8a1c712-a869-49d6-a5e1-7da5dccd0...@k2g2000yql.googlegroups
> > .com>, harald.henkel....@web.de writes
> >
> > >Oh, that's an easy one:
> > >NT 3.1, NT Backup shows in the About dialog "Backup Version 1.0
> > >Revison 3.16 SCSI Tape 1.0 (c) 1993 Conner Software."
> > >NT 3.5, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version
> > >4.0 Copyright (c), 1993-1994 Arcada Software Inc."
> > >NT 4, NT Backup shows "Microsoft Windows NT Bandsicherung Version 4.0
> > >Copyright (c), 1993-1996 Seagate Software Inc."
> >
> > That'll be Backup Exec then. =A0Nothing else it could be. =A0See if you c=
> an
> > find a version onhttp://www.oldversion.com/, if not, it shouldn't be
> > too hard to track down a copy.
> 
> The strange thing is, I connot remember to have ever used anything
> else then CPBackup (mainly floppies) and NTBackup.
> Yet, there is some small chance, that I used some version of Backup
> Exec I "copied" from work.
> 
> On www.oldversion.com I couldn't find ANY sort of backup software.
> Maybe i'm blind...
> I wasted all the day for searching for some backup/restore software,
> that could read tapes written in compressed MTF (MS tape format)
> format.
> There are a lot of tools for reading (corrupted) BKF files, but only
> from disk, which doesn't help me much.

If you can install cygwin you would have dd, which would let you copy
the tape to disk and then use the 'tools for reading (corrupted) BKF
files'. 

> 
> I FOUND some backup programs, but they all didn't run on WinNT4.
> 
> >
> > --
> > (\__/) =A0
> > (=3D'.'=3D) =A0Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
> > (")_(") =A0http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png
> 
>                                                                                                              

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                    

In article <dc14781d-21d6-4d82-b7f9-01f4278755e9@z9g2000yqi.googlegroups
..com>, harald.henkel.dah@web.de writes

>On www.oldversion.com I couldn't find ANY sort of backup software.
>Maybe i'm blind...

I didn't check, but if you're gonna find an old version of anything,
it'll usually be on oldversion.com ;)

I have two versions of Backup Exec on CD.   One is badged IBM and
contains Seagate Backup Exec for Windows/95/98/NT, claiming to be
Seagate version 3.0, and the other is "Quantum Software Kit", containing
Veritas Backup Exec 10 for Windows Servers. Both are original CDs with
keys.

If you contact me off-list (the email address is valid) and supply me
with some beer vouchers to cover postage, I'll post them to you.  I
don't guarantee they will work, it's your choice if you want to try
them.

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 22 Mai, 20:27, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Fri, 22 May 2009 10:31:06 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> > There are a lot of tools for reading (corrupted) BKF files, but only
> > from disk, which doesn't help me much.
>
> If you can install cygwin you would have dd, which would let you copy
> the tape to disk and then use the 'tools for reading (corrupted) BKF
> files'.

Ok. I installed Cygwin 1.7 on the PC.
What am I supposed to do with it?

How can dd (or any other command) read the tape?

At Mon, 25 May 2009 14:30:48 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> On 22 Mai, 20:27, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> > At Fri, 22 May 2009 10:31:06 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> > > There are a lot of tools for reading (corrupted) BKF files, but only
> > > from disk, which doesn't help me much.
> >
> > If you can install cygwin you would have dd, which would let you copy
> > the tape to disk and then use the 'tools for reading (corrupted) BKF
> > files'.
> 
> Ok. I installed Cygwin 1.7 on the PC.
> What am I supposed to do with it?
> 
> How can dd (or any other command) read the tape?

Fire up bash shell and type:

dd if=/dev/st0 of=/somefilename

Assumes that '/dev/st0' is a (fake?) device file for the tape drive. 
I'm presuming that there is some mapping in Cygwin world for things like
tape drives.  (That is possibly optimistic on my part and assumes that
NT has anything like device files in the first place.) Oh, dd might need
some additional parameters, like bs= (block size).

>                                                                                                   

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                                                             

On 26 Mai, 00:05, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Mon, 25 May 2009 14:30:48 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> > Ok. I installed Cygwin 1.7 on the PC.
> > What am I supposed to do with it?
>
> > How can dd (or any other command) read the tape?
>
> Fire up bash shell and type:
>
> dd if=3D/dev/st0 of=3D/somefilename
>
> Assumes that '/dev/st0' is a (fake?) device file for the tape drive.
> I'm presuming that there is some mapping in Cygwin world for things like
> tape drives. =A0(That is possibly optimistic on my part and assumes that
> NT has anything like device files in the first place.) Oh, dd might need
> some additional parameters, like bs=3D (block size).

It seems st0 is known.
With the above command I get a 1024 byte file, starting with TAPE,
date and time of tape creation in clear text followed by the creating
program "Backup Exec for Windows NT (bewinnt.exe) Version 6.0 Rev.
108.

So this looks like I once had that program, but now I don't. And I
didn't find any Website where I could download it.
Might the Seagate Backup 3.0 be compatible with that?

I tried also
dd if=3D/dev/st0 of=3D/somefilename bs=3D512 skip=3D2
but it doesn't read anything, as if there wasn't anything else on the
tape after those two block with the tape header which it could read.

I now tried also for a tape for a DAT tape.
The file looks the same, only that it says Windows NT Backup
(ntbackup.exe) version 3.41... and it also doesn't read further after
the header.

So what now. Can dd read all the tape and create a bkf file which I
could then read with some other program? How?
Or would I be bound to use a Backup Exec 6.0 and NT4 compatible packup
program?

At Tue, 26 May 2009 13:50:36 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> On 26 Mai, 00:05, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> > At Mon, 25 May 2009 14:30:48 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
> > > Ok. I installed Cygwin 1.7 on the PC.
> > > What am I supposed to do with it?
> >
> > > How can dd (or any other command) read the tape?
> >
> > Fire up bash shell and type:
> >
> > dd if=3D/dev/st0 of=3D/somefilename
> >
> > Assumes that '/dev/st0' is a (fake?) device file for the tape drive.
> > I'm presuming that there is some mapping in Cygwin world for things like
> > tape drives. =A0(That is possibly optimistic on my part and assumes that
> > NT has anything like device files in the first place.) Oh, dd might need
> > some additional parameters, like bs=3D (block size).
> 
> It seems st0 is known.
> With the above command I get a 1024 byte file, starting with TAPE,
> date and time of tape creation in clear text followed by the creating
> program "Backup Exec for Windows NT (bewinnt.exe) Version 6.0 Rev.
> 108.
> 
> So this looks like I once had that program, but now I don't. And I
> didn't find any Website where I could download it.
> Might the Seagate Backup 3.0 be compatible with that?
> 
> I tried also
> dd if=3D/dev/st0 of=3D/somefilename bs=3D512 skip=3D2
> but it doesn't read anything, as if there wasn't anything else on the
> tape after those two block with the tape header which it could read.

dd will only read 'files'.  It *looks* like this tape was written using
some flavor of tape labels, which are small 'files' that 'label' big
files containing data, with the idea of 'faking' a serialized file
system of sorts on the tape, typically starting with a 'volume' label,
then file or header labels, containing things like file names, dates,
and other information that might live in a directory entry record for a
disk file (eg owner, permissions, and other attributes).  Old mainframe
OSes (such as VMS) did this so one could treat a tape like it was just
a really slow disk drive and copy files to/from the tape using typical
file commands like copy and get directories of tapes with the dir
command, etc. 

You also need to use the 'mt' program, which spaces/skips the tape to
differenent places on the tape, in this case by skiping forward over
the label 'files'.  You also need to use the non-rewinding device
(/dev/nst0), otherwise each access causes the tape to be rewound.

> 
> I now tried also for a tape for a DAT tape.
> The file looks the same, only that it says Windows NT Backup
> (ntbackup.exe) version 3.41... and it also doesn't read further after
> the header.
> 
> So what now. Can dd read all the tape and create a bkf file which I
> could then read with some other program? How?
> Or would I be bound to use a Backup Exec 6.0 and NT4 compatible packup
> program?

You probably need Backup Exec 6.0 or some replacement for it.  I think
another poster said he had a set of CDs with this program on it.

>                                                            

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                                                                                            

In article <41b35980-c005-430d-ac62-870ab3c3db03@f19g2000yqh.googlegroup
s.com>, harald.henkel.dah@web.de writes

>It seems st0 is known.

I think Cygwin only creates it if the Windows equivalent \\.\tape0
exists.  I have Cygwin installed but no tape drive and no \\.\tape0 or
st0.

>With the above command I get a 1024 byte file, starting with TAPE,
>date and time of tape creation in clear text followed by the creating
>program "Backup Exec for Windows NT (bewinnt.exe) Version 6.0 Rev.
>108.

Excellent!  Pity a standard wasn't developed for all tape backups to do
this so that software could say things like "You need <whatever> to read
this tape" instead of "Unrecognised or unformatted tape"

>So this looks like I once had that program, but now I don't. And I
>didn't find any Website where I could download it.
>Might the Seagate Backup 3.0 be compatible with that?

I've just looked at the two copies of Backup Exec I have.  On the first,
although the CD itself proudly proclaims "Seagate Software version 3.0",
when it is placed in the drive it pops up a browser with a list of
programs to install.  This includes

Seagate Backup Exec for Windows 95/NT, version 2.0j
Seagate Backup Exec for Windows, version 5.6

Reading the readme files suggests that the second is for Windows 3.1.
I don't think this CD is suitable for you.

The second is labelled "VERITAS Backup Exec 10".  Inserting it results
in a popup "Veritas Backup for Windows Servers".  Looking at the quick
installation guide, it says last updated May 6, 2005.  Be aware that
this may not install on non-server OSes.  I ran the installer up to the
point at which it was about to install files on XP Pro and no objections
were raised, but YMMV.  It might refuse to run.

If it were me in your situation, I'd look around for a copy of BE6.  The
first CD I have is too early and the second too late.  Up to you if you
want to try them.

-- 
(\__/)   
(='.'=)  Bunny says Windows 7 is Vi$ta reloaded.
(")_(")  http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/windows_7.png

On 27 Mai, 09:18, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> If it were me in your situation, I'd look around for a copy of BE6.

Some good news and some bad news (from my point of view of course).

I got a download link from Symantec for Backup Exec 7.3, which I could
install on my NT4 PC.
And it recognizes the tapes.
And it could catalogue and restore one of the 3 tapes...

But for the other two tapes, while catalogueing, I receive the well
known error 9 for the Adaptec controller (timeout).
And while I was able to restore the NTBackup tapes without
catalogueing (at least the first backup set on the tape) Backup Exec
won't let me restore a tape which is not catalogued.

At Thu, 28 May 2009 12:36:00 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel.dah@web.de wrote:

> 
> On 27 Mai, 09:18, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> > If it were me in your situation, I'd look around for a copy of BE6.
> 
> Some good news and some bad news (from my point of view of course).
> 
> I got a download link from Symantec for Backup Exec 7.3, which I could
> install on my NT4 PC.
> And it recognizes the tapes.
> And it could catalogue and restore one of the 3 tapes...
> 
> But for the other two tapes, while catalogueing, I receive the well
> known error 9 for the Adaptec controller (timeout).

Sounds like possibly dirty or damaged tapes.  These might not be
recoverable. 

> And while I was able to restore the NTBackup tapes without
> catalogueing (at least the first backup set on the tape) Backup Exec
> won't let me restore a tape which is not catalogued.
> 
>                                                                              

-- 
Robert Heller             -- 978-544-6933
Deepwoods Software        -- Download the Model Railroad System
http://www.deepsoft.com/  -- Binaries for Linux and MS-Windows
heller@deepsoft.com       -- http://www.deepsoft.com/ModelRailroadSystem/
                        

On 28 Mai, 23:15, Robert Heller <hel...@deepsoft.com> wrote:
> At Thu, 28 May 2009 12:36:00 -0700 (PDT) harald.henkel....@web.de wrote:
>
>
>
> > On 27 Mai, 09:18, Mike Tomlinson <m...@jasper.org.uk> wrote:
> > > If it were me in your situation, I'd look around for a copy of BE6.
>
> > Some good news and some bad news (from my point of view of course).
>
> > I got a download link from Symantec for Backup Exec 7.3, which I could
> > install on my NT4 PC.
> > And it recognizes the tapes.
> > And it could catalogue and restore one of the 3 tapes...
>
> > But for the other two tapes, while catalogueing, I receive the well
> > known error 9 for the Adaptec controller (timeout).
>
> Sounds like possibly dirty or damaged tapes. =A0These might not be
> recoverable.

No. In fact, before I wrote the last posting I looked at the possible
configuration options, and there was one, that seemed to indicate,
that there is a different way of catalogueing:
One is reading the catalog stored on the tape, which was checked. This
is quite fast.
When unchecked, Backup Exec scanns the whole tape. This takes the same
time as restoring, only that no files are actually restored.
After that finished successfully, restoring the tape worked as well.
Only that by default restoring the file ACL are restored as well which
did not work.
Backup Exec protocolled an error for every file, counted all files as
skipped and the restore session as failed.
Yet all the files were in fact restored.
On the second record set on the first tape which did not work with
normal catalogueing I switched ACL restoring off and no errors were
protocolled.

So everything seems to be fine!

I will let Backup Exec restore the third tape tomorrow and will than
catalugue all the other tapes (11 QIC, 5 DAT) with this mothod just to
check if there are some with more record sets on them, than NTBackup
reported.