Can not read old CompacTape II tapes

[Lluís Aunós]

Hi,

we have some old tapes (CompacTapeII-tk70 years 1989-1990-1991), but we don't know how these historic tapes were generated. We think it were saved with VAX 6410, or VAX Station 3100, and we don't know which vms version.

Nowadays we have only AlphaServers and OpenVMS 7.3-2. We do the following to read the tapes (with the error shown):

$ mount/for mkc500
%MOUNT-I-WRITELOCK, volume is write locked
%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, mounted on _DIDO$MKC500:
$ back/log/list=info.txt mkc500:*.*/save
%BACKUP-F-LABELERR, error in tape label processing on MKC500:[000000]*.*;
-BACKUP-F-NOTANSI, tape is not valid ANSI format

Anyone knows what we can do to read these tapes?

Thank you,

Lluís

[Steven Schweda]

> %MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, mounted on _DIDO$MKC500:

Not a good start. I'd expect a tape label in
there, like:

%MOUNT-I-MOUNTED, B08B11 mounted on _ALP$MKB400:

> Anyone knows what we can do to read these
> tapes?

Doesn't look as if BACKUP will do much for
you. You might try something like DUMP to
see if there's anything recognizable on there.

Any chance that the tapes were (bulk) erased?

[marsh_1]

or try mount/over=id and do a dir on it see if theres anything you recognise

[Jan van den Ende]

Lluís.

What drive are you using?

Most modern tape drives are no longer (read-) compatible with the TK50 / TK70 format.

Check the doc of your drive, IF it should be able to read those formats, it will be explicitly stated. If not, you will have to somehow get access to a drive that CAN read them.

hth

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Volker Halle]

Lluís,

your MOUNT/FOR command did not show a volume label for that tape. Make sure, there is really any data by using:

$ DUMP/BL=COUNT=1 MKC500:

to dump the blocks on tape one by one.

Volker.

[Lluís Aunós]

thank you for your answers.


The tape unit model is TZ87. It is possible to read TK70 tapes but not write in it.

the mount/id not recognizes the tape:
-----------------------------
$ mount/over=id mkc500
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, tape is not labeled
%MOUNT-I-OPRQST, Please mount device _DIDO$MKC500:
-----------------------------


The execution of the dump command as follow:
------------
$ DUMP/BL=COUNT=1 MKC500:

Dump of device MKC500: on 2-DEC-2008 12:18:08.13
Block number 1 (00000001), 0 (0000) bytes
%SYSTEM-F-PARITY, parity error
------------
doest the error mean that there isn't any data?

Thank you,

Lluís

[Lluís Aunós]

>> Any chance that the tapes were (bulk) erased?

the tapes have been in a cupboard of the data center all this time. It's strange all the tapes have this problem.

[Heuser-Hofmann]

Lluís,

I have a original TK70-drive here. If nothing helps you may send the tape to Germany.

good luck
Eberhard

[Hoff]

What's your goal here?

Accessing and retrieving the data?

Curiosity?

Data security?

[marsh_1]

or moun/over=id/nolabel