HP response - Colorados and XP

[CA756694]

There have been many messages on this forum with regard to the compatibility of the Colorado product and Windows XP. Rather than respond to each and every one, I thought it better to post up one thread where I can provide a statement as to what is happening and answer your questions.

As you've gathered there are problems. The problems are driver related.

We, as in HP, are trying very, very hard to find a solution but as there multiple organisations involved then it is not proving easy. We realise that the only losers in this are you guys, our customers.

I know you are all frustrated and you think that HP doesn't care that it's customers are having problems, but this is NOT the case.

It's going to sound clich??, but you need to bear with us until we find that solution.

John Nash
Hewlett Packard

[BR19682]

Hi John.
Just wanted to let you know, that there are a few people understnading your problems.
We have had HP-UX problems by tons, but with the escalation process we got at least 99 % solved. Some took a real while, but they have finally been fixed.
To the impatient people ( sometimes me as well ) :
I have seen these guys and ladies really work hard on visits at the different locations in Germany. So pls trust them.
Rgds
Alexander M. Ermes

[Doug Little]

John,
Appreciate your canidness. Can you give us tape dependent folks any ideas. Weeks, month..?

Thanks for your hard work
Doug

[CA756694]

I thought the solution was only a few weeks away months ago !

There are investigation results moving between the concerned parties but I have yet to be able to successfully pin a deadline date to a released solution.

cheers

John

[CA816442]

John,

Here is my question... why is it that HP cannot get an XP driver out for the HP Colorado 8GB internal tape drive, but Stompinc has produced a backup program that will operate the drive as a tape backup device via its tape backup program Backup MyPC ??

Seems like the driver technology has been "invented".

So what is really going on ??

-Ric

[CA756694]

Ric,

The driver technology may have been invented but not, crucially, by us.

The qic157 is the generic driver for these devices but the externals require the additional one.

cheers

John

[CA816442]

Thanks John,

I'm having problem with the internal Colorado 8GB. It has the driver qic157.sys ver 5.1.2600.0 (XPClient.010817-1148) but still no operation.

Using NovaBack I get "Tape Unit is not ready". Using the Backup Utility provided by XP (Microsoft & Veritas) I get "Required Media Missing".

Do I have a different issue, or is this the expected failure ?

Here is the interesting part- a buddy of mine upgraded XP over Win98 so his Colorado Backup II was already installed. It WORKS on XP !! He's doing backups and restores on the identical tape unit as me, where I fail.

I tried to install my Colorado Backup II ver 9.0 that I had previously downloaded but it said my OS (XP) was not a supported OS. Seems, if I had not done a clean install and had had it previously installed I may have been able to use it.

Any ideas on this ? Maybe the final CBII should be patched to NOT check the OS during installation.

Why is my friends CBII runing his internal Colorado 8GB on XP ?? (I don't know what ver he is using)

There's a solution lurking here...

-Ric

[bernt_1]

Thank you for being upfront about the problem. I also have am 8gb external drive. I also have a new computer Pentium 4 1.8/512Ram with windows xp, I was told the computer may be too fast for the drive. Is this speed problem to be corrected or is the drive to be used only with my lesser networked computer as the sole solution to ever using the tape backup again?

[CA756694]

The CBII thing sounds really intriguing but our hands are tied as later versions of CBII were licensed from VERITAS (the people that also make Back Up My Pc).

Your Novaback problem again looks like it's driver related. Media and timeout errors are just the symptoms.

I heard that the backup utility and the QIC157 driver (with the SCM driver) does the job as well. This is something that we can, and will, validate as the results that I had indicated that they didn't.

Keep those comments coming !


cheers

John

[CA701284]

Have you tried using the XP application Compatibilty Toolkit that comes with XP to install CB II and tell it is is running on W2K or 98? I think I would give it a shot. It may just be the install program that has a problem with XP and if the OS tells it that it is running on something other than XP it may work for you.

[CA756694]

HP cannot distribute Colorado Backup II anymore. So, if this worked, it would purely be a workaround for those that had CBII version 9.0/9.1.

John

[CA816442]

Jeff,

A good idea, and it did provide some results:

I tried installing CBII 8.1 as Win2000 and no go, but when I changed the compatability to WinNT4 it installed. Then on rebooting it produced BSOD's. I had to go back to Last Good Configuration. That got be booted ok and as CBII was installed I tried it but the media was not recognized.

I then tried CBII 9.0 and that suckere installed with no need for a compatability setting. that is also the one my buddy is successfully using. I rebooted and no problems. I started the program and it sees the Colorado 8GB internal drive but it does not like the media, even a newly unwrapped tape.

At this point I am running the same configuration as my friend: XP, Colorado 8GB internal, CBII 9.0 -- working for hime but not for me.

Since my tapes are either new or previously used by NovaBack I'll go over to my friends house today and intitialize 2 tapes for use by CBII and try again.... but I do not feel very hopeful.

Sounds like HP "signed" away the right to develop driver code when it licensed CBII to BackMyPC people, providing them a non-competitive advantage to offer the only software backup software that can run on the HP hardware.

I'm only musing here, but that has a bad smell of non-comptetitive practices in the marketplace...

HP should take the initiative to support its customers at the basic driver level so we can run any backup program that previously supported this drive.

-Ric

[CA756694]

Ric,

Cards on the table ?

Rightly or wrongly, we have never owned the whole solution (hardware, driver, software) except for a short while after we bought out CMS some 8 or 9 years ago.

I am left with a legacy situation here which is proving tough to work through.

Although, we are discussing some good options. Many of these are simply not achievable for one reason or another.

cheers
John

[mike topper]

I say this is a lot of BULL. The 5 & 8 Gigs were fine in their time. I have already waited too long to back up my files. If HP will not cut us a deal on an UPGRADE, then I suggest customers look into RAID Technology or do what I am planning to do soon, purchase a new tape drive from another vendor.

Cheers don't restore crashed systems ...

Best,

Mike T.

[CA816442]

John,

I understand Mike's frustration above. I won't join in a chorus of reaction because I do not want to shut down our communication and I do appreciate the place you find your self in.

How about going to the people HP licensed/sold CBII to and buy back the low level driver with the rights to modify it to be generic in support of the tape unit.

Then its simply a dollar issue and you could quickly get it to support CBII9.x for us current users, removing some of the heat.

Otherwise, I really do think HP must consider moving us all to a different tape platform at a near $0 cost.

While I paid good money for the tape unit, my real costs are in the boxes of Travan media I own. So I'd prefer to get this resolved using current hardware.

Thanks for your continuing attention.

-Ric

[CA816442]

ok John,

I went to my buddies house and retensioned and initialized 3 tapes on his XP, CBII9.0 and then came back to see if it would recognize my tapes. Same same on all 3 tapes -- can't recognize media.

My friend is going to create a profile here and tell what he is running so that you have the opportunity to make contact with him in regards to finding out WHY his XP/CBII9.0 configuration works.

This is important because if you can define the operating and setup parameters it should be possible to publish that and make it available to all of us. I'm asking you to follow up with him, please.

-Ric

[Ken Parker_1]

Hi John,

You have been chatting with Ric Fink, among others, about compatiblity problems. In his last message to you, July 20, he mentioned that I (his "buddy") was running CBII 9.0 on XP. That's true and I've never had a problem with it since the original install. I have a Colorado 8GB internal drive which I installed early this year when I got a new PC. I haven't a clue why mine works, but if you want to know more about the configuration on my PC please feel free to contact me and pose some questions that might helpful.

Ken Parker

[CA816442]

BTW, feeling cornered by the reality of these tape problems I downloaded the 30-Demo of Backup MyPC.

Guess what ?? That demo program gets the same error about the media as does the CBII. What now ??

The problem must be in the tape's qic157.sys driver, and not the drvmcdb.sys driver of CBII, since the demo would not work. But HOW can they sell their program as XP compatible ??

I really hope HP hires a good assembler programer and gives them the assignment to get the device operating under the XP io specs.

-Ric

[CA816442]

John,

If HP is smart they will want you to talk to Ken Parker because HIS Colorado 8GB internal tape works under XP.

That means there IS some operational configuration that will work. HP should want you to adequately define it so that it is available for general use.

PLEASE privately contact Ken Parker and find out what is happening "right" on his system.

Thanks.

-Ric

[CA756694]

Ken,

Can you post your email address.

I'd be interested in your system config.

cheers

John

[Ken Parker_1]

John,

Sure, try: ken@beyondthefog.com

Ken

[CA814553]

Hi John,

Let me share some experience with you. It may help here, and in W2K and NT problems.

We use W2K as one platform for testing tape drive multiplexing and mirroring. Naturally there are a lot of tests that do not go "as planned". The result is "media not recognized" and similar problems.

We can see the same thing with tapes that has been init'd by other systems.

So - what we do is to use our equipment to write several more-than-80-byte records from physical BOT. 80 or smaller won't work, and a simple hardware erase command won't work.

The result is an unrecognized media that W2K offers to prepare. Success!

Peter

[CA756694]

Internal Colorados.

I would be interested in more information on Colorado internals with both the XP backup application and Veritas's BUMP.

I have run a number of tests here with different internal drives and both methods of backup and they have worked each and every time.

Post your email address and a brief system overview and I will be in touch.

cheers

John

[Lazaros Economou]

Hi John,
I recently upgraded from NT4 to XP. I ended up
with 6 GB of valuable user data I can't restore. One solution would be to move my
T3000 to a friend running 98, restore everything on his CDR and throw my T3000
in the bin...

- Can HP provide his customers with a list of possible workarounds ? It doesn't have to be an official solution. Just give us something, a
few hints and tips (other than wait for drivers) would do the job (at least for now)

- Will HP Colorado backup for DOS restore files on an XP machine (originally backed up with Backup Exec)?

Regards,
Lazaros

[CA756694]

Laza

First of all, I am not even sure that files saved with Backup Exec can be restored by Colorado backup.

The second point is that a T3000 was the last of the _floppy_ port drives last produced nearly 5 years ago. It's not a Colorado external drive, which is what this thread was started to solve, and so any final solution here won't help you.

Third point. I am not sure about DOS and XP but knowing Microsoft, I am sure that you will only be lucky to get any old DOS utility operating without some serious fiddling about.

Being honest about it, we have done nothing with the compatibility of floppy port devices with XP and I have no beginnings of a clue as to whether they will operate or not. Maybe when I've solved the problems with the Colorados, we'll take a look at the older floppy devices.

In the meantime, my advice is a restore onto your friends Win98 machine and a network cable.

cheers

John