Windows XP Pro and Colorado 5GB tape drive?

[Lex Kamphuis]

Hello,

I'm presently using my Colorado 5GB internal Travan drive on a computer with Win 98SE installed. I'm using Colorado Backup II v. 8.1.
I would like to clean install Windows XP on that PC and keep using the Colorado drive as well.
I browsed the HP site for updated software that supports XP, but couldn't find any. I only discovered Backup II v. 9.0 for Windows 2000 and Windows 2000 drivers version 1.0.
Can anybody advise me what to do? E.g. Would XP detect the drive by itself or should I install the Windows 2000 drivers?
Hints and tips on this are greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[Lewis Finch]

The internal drive will work nicely in the native back up applet

[Lex Kamphuis]

Lewis,

Thanks for the reply. This sounds promising, though I don't know about a backup facility in XP itself...Just the other day I received a message from Trevor "D", HP Data Storage Customer Care Centre, who told me that I should use Colorado Backup II v. 9.1 -originally meant for Windows ME- in conjunction with the Colorado Win2K drivers. According to him this should work well...Did you ever heard of this? If you like I could paste the whole message.

Thanks,
Lex

[Lewis Finch]

Yes, I know who Trevor is and he is correct but I have seen occasional restore issues with this software and much prefer the native back up for this particular drive. It was, after all, written for ME and no changes were made after the introduction of XP. Try both and see which one you prefer. Make sure you do a test restore to verify fucntionality before you get caught in a bind some day

[Lex Kamphuis]

Lewis,

I'm probably overlooking something, but where is the Windows XP backup applet "hiding"? I use XP Home, so maybe it isn't available in this version...
Situation here, is that I use a network at home. The main PC has XP, but the one with the Colorado still runs W98. Since this machine is getting more unstable every day, I want to do a clean XP install on it. Though I use Drive Image for system backup's, I still use the Colorado for backing up data. I would like to keep the drive, since I still have some 10 tapes and I think it would be wasting money to get rid of that. Following the discussions it seems that a lot of people are frustrated with the XP vs. Colorado situation and waiting for a permanent HP solution, which I believe will never come..

So after the clean install I hope XP will detect the Colorado drive by itself. Or do you recommend using those Colorado W2K drivers..?
Sorry for asking that much, but I a bit hesident here...

Thanks again,
Lex

[Lewis Finch]

you'll find it under Programs/accessories/system tools/backup and you are right. Since the tape drive product line was discontinued almost 3 years ago there won't be any additional software development for something that is obsolete.

[Lex Kamphuis]

Lewis,

I'm afraid that indeed XP Home doesn't have the backup applet installed. But there's a backup application on the installation CDR called NTBackup. The Readme warns as follows:
"NTBackup Backup/Restore and ASR release notes
Backup/Restore..
1. ASR is not supported on home edition.
IF you install NtBackup from the CD to the Home Edition, ASR functionality will appear to work fine during the backup session. Since the setup does not support ASR in the home edition, there is no way to initiate
the ASR restore in case of a disaster. If you need to restore from this session, install Windows XP manually and then restore from the ASR media..."

So missing th ASP functionality probably would not cause a problem since I'm gonna use the Colorado for backing up data files I presume...

2. You didn't answer my question on using the Colorado W2k drivers, instead of the native XP drivers..
Would you say just install XP and let it detect the Colorado drive by itself and have its native XP drivers do the job...?

Sorry for all these questions, but I wan't to be prepared as much as I can. But on the other hand you probably can never be fully prepared when using Ms products I figure..;-)

Thanks so much again and greetings from rainy Netherlands,
Lex