QIC data recovery.

[Mdcastle]

I have some QIC tapes that I backed up data to some 20 years ago (and a few DAT tapes for good measure). I still have a SCSI QIC drive that was working 20 years ago , but the data is in Novastor’s format and I imagine trying get the drive and software working to view it now would be an absolute nightmare. It there some kind of service where I could send the tapes and they could pull data off them. After 20 years have the tapes likely disintegrated to the point that trying to read them is pointless. It’s not worth that much to me, but there is nothing I know wrong with the tapes aside from being obsolete hardware and software.

[gotpasswords]

Data recovery services can do what you want, but it will not be cheap.

[astro]

Good luck

HP Computer Museum

Collector’s Notes:

Over time, these quarter-inch cartridge tapes become problematic. Our experience is that about 50 percent of tapes up to 15 years old are readable. 35 percent of tapes between 15 and 20 years old are readable. Less than 10 percent of tapes over 20 years old are readable (almost no tapes are readable after 25 years). By comparison, floppy discs have proven to be a far more durable storage medium over time. Our experience is that over 90 percent of floppy discs between 30 and 35 years old are readable

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[Michael63129]

@astro

Good luck

HP Computer Museum

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They also say that it isn’t hopeless and the problem isn’t the data or the medium disintegrating (unless it was stored badly):

The problem with the cartridge tapes is the internal elastic drive belt. This belt stretches over time. It eventually becomes so loose that the magnetic tape will unspool within the cartridge. It is very hard to recover a tape once that happens. If you have an old cartridge tape that you want to read, DON’T put it into a tape drive (unless it is less than 10 or 15 years old). Replace the elastic drive belt within the cartrdige with a new belt. You can get a replacement belt from a new QIC tape cartridge (which are still being made). Please let us know if you find a way to source the belts by themselves. Most tapes can be “saved” (even older tapes) by replacing the drive belt.

(ironically, they note that using a tape too often will cause the opposite problem)

Of course, operating the drive is a much bigger problem, perhaps find an old computer (IBM PC clone? ISA bus?) that can support it (I know that computers with ISA busses and the like were around long enough to use IDE hard drives, which can still be found today (or use an old drive, watch the capacity limitations of old computers though), including adapters for them, making it easy to transfer the drive to a modern computer; if you need software, I’m sure it can be found online somewhere).