I have a machine that I built back for gesit force that is purposely 32-bit software with hardware serial and parallel ports. Well it turns out that vista cannot join a domain unless it is business or ultimate edition. So I sourced an ultimate key, and upgraded. The upgrade failed and ate everything. So I had to recover the files off the drive, then install. That's when I came down with the flu. So I have to redownload the tape tools and configure them, then start trying recovery.
Hmm, that sucks, I hope you recovered everything on the hard drive alright. Hope you get better soon Kev.
Older OS don't work with modern motherboards well. USB 3.0 and graphics drivers problems. Vista still has support, yet is backwards compatible (the 32-bit version) with older apps and things like serial ports, parallel ports without an OS layer problem. In vista I can run very old apps without any problems.
Motherboards I have won't support XP, pluse XP support was pulled yesterday so there's no more push updates via windows update.
Pretty much any motherboard will support XP, even modern ones. If the manufacturer doesnt list drivers, it will still probably work fine. Just goto who makes the devices and get the xp driver, easy. Also, patches doesnt matter. There are no updates to the SNES or Amiga either, but they still work. If you are dealing with old hardware and old tapes, then using an old OS offline is no problem. I dont even see why you needed to join a domain, its just really not required. If you needed files off a share, you can just give the username and password each time you try to map the share. AND if it works in vista, it will work in 7 anyway, which also has a 32 bit version.
I'm going for ease of use, I don't fancy spending time digging for drivers. The program (norton backup exec) won't install local apps unless it has domain. I appreciate the input but it's a case of what we need and is easiest versus what is possible with the most effort and time consumption.
More information certainly helps. What versions of software are you intending to use? the "era correct" ones? or the modern descendants and hope the tapes work with that? You could install Windows 2000 Server or 2003 Server and do it all "local". You will probably find a lot of the era specific apps you are going to need to use, wont work on Vista or 7 anyway and a lot of tape software will have expected to run on a server OS anyway.
Sorry to hear about these setbacks. If there's something that can be done to get things working properly, I hope you'll ask the forum.
For the era with these tapes and the software that was used, I'd slap a temp hard drive in your Alpha 1/2 box and install Windows 2000 Server and I'd also do NT4 Server on another drive just in case 2000 is too new. Backup exec will produce more install errors even if you have 2000/nt4 professional/workstation installed.
The modern versions don't support the tapes or drives, I am using the last version to support the drives and that software dates to appx 2006?
Installing vanilla XP won't work. If you have a XP install with SP2 then it should be fine (as I went through this with my mobo). Are you planning to still use the machine after dumping these tapes? That would be the only reason I could think of where updates would still be important.
Hi If you are only using this PC to restore data from the tapes you don't need the Desktop Laptop Option. Cheers Good luck!
+1. The Linux kernel just dropped support for the 386 CPU a few short years ago... But the ISA bus is still supported along with modern networks with SMB Windows shares. Someone, somewhere probably pays for the maint of the exact driver you would need for the tapes. There is probably even an application to extract the data... The most common IIRC is "tar" (tape archive) and should be compatible, as UNIX had tapes even before DOS and probably set the standard. Could be worth a visit to a Linux IRC channel. The folks at PCLinuxOS are very helpful and knowledgeable, and I have known a few for years. I think a few of them might love to help with this... Now that I mention that, I think I might find out. What is the equipment list you are trying to use?
