Uncreative Labs

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Hi all,

I have a 400MB/800MB "Travan" tape (QTR-1) from Sony flying around here.
It was originally used as a backup tape in conjunction with a Conner tape drive (it plugged into the floppy cable as a 3rd device I believe).

However I do not have any vintage hardware anymore.
I see IDE Travan drives on eBay frequently, but they are all listed as handling tapes with 20/40GB -> such as the Seagate Quantum STT3401A. Does anybody know if these drives can also handle my 400/800MB tape?

Also, can these IDE ATAPI drives be used with a USB-to-IDE adapter?
I remember the "3rd floppy" thing was a pain in the rear to get to work (I recall Win98 had a builtin tape backup program that finally recognized the drive) so I am thinking I probably shouldn't even bother with the USB adapter.

Regards
mf_2

Joined: 01 Oct 2006 Posts: 36 Location: USA

I'm not sure about Travan but I know LTO drives can only read back two tape generations. I searched a bit and found this page that seems to indicate that at least some Travan drives can read tapes one generation back, so I really doubt TR-7 (20GB) drives would be able to read TR-1 media. If you want to recover the data from the tape I'm guessing you'll need to find an old TR-1 or TR-2 drive somewhere.

https://assemblergames.com/threads/reading-travan-8gb-data-tapes.66234/

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Thank you for the reply. These drives had their heyday in the mid-90s, so I would imagine that finding one with a somewhat modern connection (USB or even IDE) might be an issue. However suppose I find one with IDE - what are my chances of getting it to work with an IDE-USB adaptor? Does anybody have any experience with that?

Last resort would be buying a PII rig off eBay and putting the drive in there and try getting the data off by using the builtin tape program.

Joined: 01 Oct 2006 Posts: 36 Location: USA

I've never tried any of those IDE to USB adapters myself, though I have read they can be kind of iffy depending on the quality and what kind of device you are using them with. I was looking up Travan drives and found some that actually connect to a parallel port so if your PC has one that might be worth looking into.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/HP-Colorado-T1000e-Tape-drive-Travan-400-MB-800-TR-1-parallel/253922669244

https://www.amazon.com/Iomega-Ditto-External-Parallel-Drive/dp/B00005QY02

I don't know if any of this stuff is even supported on modern versions of Windows so the drivers and software might require Windows 98 or NT4.

Joined: 02 Oct 2004 Posts: 377 Location: Stuttgart, Germany

Thank you for the quick reply!

I checked the links. The eBay one says "parallel", but the pictures and the fact that it is an internal drive make it seem like an erroneous description. It looks like a 34-pin floppy port to me.

However the external drive on amazon seems legit.
I might look into that. Unfortunately I just got rid of my Dell Latitude E Series laptops, some of which featured parallel port docking stations.
However my parents still have some of those laptops - maybe I can connect a drive to one of these. I realize Windows 10 might not offer any support for this drive, but maybe Windows 98 in a VM will. I hope I can do a passthru of the parallel port.

First I have to find one of those drives on eBay Germany - at least now I have some better keywords, such as Iomega Ditto. Travan TR-1 really limits the number of hits on eBay.

Joined: 01 Oct 2006 Posts: 36 Location: USA

You're right, that's a floppy connector version. I wasn't looking at the auction photos but apparently there also an external parallel model. Also found this page with a Windows 95 driver for various drives. The description says it supports up to Windows 10 but I sort of doubt it, the installer is 16-bit.

https://www.helpjet.net/Fs-78819461-80177087-86115236.html

Anyway good luck with it. Smile