Need some help using a Travan 20/10 tape drive -- HELP!!

[Kwad Guy]

OK, I installed a new Tecmar Travan NS20 (10/20Gb) IDE
drive in my computer last night. Bare with me, I am
new to the world of tape backups on a PC. (Most of my
tape backups were on--ugh--9 track tapes or DAT off
Unix).

So first I tried to boot up on a Drive Image floppy
to do a backup onto the Travan drive. Nope. While
the drive seems to be seen, when I choose it as the
destination for the backup, Drive Image just automatically
switches my choice to something else...Hmmm...

So then I booted into Windows 2000.

I started up the native Backup program under Windows 2000.
I chose to backup the C (boot) partition, plus the D
(data_1) partition. I start the backup. The Travan drive
whirs and the backup starts. But within a few seconds
it stops with the error:

"The device reported an error on a request to write data
to the media. Error reported: Bad data."

Bad data? What does that mean? I tried to backup several
times, and I always got the same error.

I have serveral questions:

1) HELP! What does that error mean? I hope it doesn't
mean the media is defective (doesn't sound like that,
but who knows...). The drive itself if brand new, as is
the tape.

2) Is there any way I can use this drive with Drive Image?
Or does it work with Ghost?

Thanks,

Kwad

 

[Kwad Guy]

Anyone?

 

[BoberFett]

Have you attempted to Retension, Erase and Format the tape?

As far as working with a drive imaging program, I imagine it would only work if the program had support for your particular tape drive.

 

[Kwad Guy]

I haven't tried to retension/reformat/erase the tape. Is there
a native application in Windows 2000 (or 98) that will allow
me to do that. I couldn't find in my cursory perusal of Win2000
help any real set of tape manipulation facilities...

Kwad

 

[BoberFett]

Does Win2K still include the backup program that was NT4? That should allow you to do that.