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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

Need help with LTO-3 Tape Transfer

M

Mathys

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I was just given a project to edit, but all the footage is on LTO-3 tapes. We were given a drive with the tapes, but it was SCSI. Our company picked up a PCI-SCSI adapter, and a cheap PC to put it in.

Here's my problem. The computer recognizes the card. The computer also identifies the drive. Personally, I've never dealt with LTO tapes before, and I have no idea how to get an image dump of the tapes. I have Hard Drives with more than enough space to dump the tapes to, but I don't have an interface with the drive to do it. My drive came with no manuals or software, and right now, I really need to get this going.

If anybody could post their workflow (as this is something that is horribly undocumented online) I'd really appreciate it. It's all new to me. Thanks again for your help.
 
Hmm...I'm pretty new to LTO as we just bought an LTO4 drive, but I think the problem you are running into is software based. Do you have backup software on your computer? From what I understand (I use Retrospect), you need to have a catalogue of what is on the backup file on the drive, in order for it to bring it back. There is a way to create the catalogue from the data on the drive, but I haven't done that yet.

So...don't think of LTO as a harddrive. It's definitely a different beast. I would ask the client what software they used to back up to LTO, get that software, and then rebuild the catalogue so you can then bring the data back.

Again, I'm new to this, too, but hope I got it right and it helps...

Kevin
 
I haven't seen any mention of LTO-3A, so I'm pretty sure they aren't those kind of tapes. Just regular LTO-3.

As far as a catalog goes, these tapes were made by the production while filming in China. I've asked them for that info, but really need to get it going sooner rather than later. If that's not an option, that's cool. I appreciate the help you guys have given me thus far.

Is there a particular version of Retrospect you recommend? I don't have any backup software at all, as I'm completely new to the LTO world, so any help or guidance you could give would be amazing.
 
Bru Osx

Bru Osx

Hey there, Retrospect can be a a little flaky on Leopard so we are using BRU Server from http://www.tolisgroup.com/

It's by far not the nicest design piece of software but it gets the job done.

Good Luck

Cheers
Matt
 
I got Retrospect, and it recognizes the drive, and has control over it (whoo -hoo, I got it to eject a tape... PROGRESS!). Problem though when I went to rebuild, it gave the error "Content Unrecognized" and wouldn't continue. Yosemite's backup software does a similar thing, and won't even attempt to re-catalogue. Anybody heard of this? Is it because I'm not using the original program that made the backup? I'm still waiting to hear back from China, but would love to make some progress before then...

Mathys
 
I have no zero problems with Retrospect on Leopard. So far...

I'm sorry to say, but you may need to just get that information before you charge in. Do you have the latest version of Retrospect? I know there is a way to rebuild a catalogue...but I would guess that is not going to work if they used other backup software.

The main thing you need to know is what they backed it up with...and then use the same software to rebuild. I think that's right...again, I'm no IT guy.
 
Just to clear up a few things mentioned in this thread...

LTO-3A is designed to connect via ethernet. So doesn't apply here.

It seems like the drive is working. However, retrospect is not the software you need. Can you find out what software was used to write the data to the tapes? You are going to need that software or some software that can access the data files on those tapes.
 
It could possible written with TAR which is a standard archiving format in post. If there is no label saying how it's written, then you need to talk to your client and find out.

That will be the challenge with archiving to tape, since not everyone may be using the same software. It's fine for inhouse, but more problematic when needed to send out of house.
 
Just wanted to check in and give an update of what has happened.

The tapes were recorded using Veritas Backup Exec. It turns out it's only compatible with Windows Server, but after we got a copy of both pieces of software everything went fine.

I'm still working on it, since the deck we were given crapped out after one tape, and I have 40 more to go, but everything is working. Thanks again to the speedy responses here. You guys were great.
 
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