Need a formatter for FTape Drive that runs from floppy

Need a formatter for FTape Drive that runs from floppy

Post by Robert A. Hayd » Wed, 27 Jul 1994 11:40:04



I have a colorado floppy tape drive, and I need to format some tapes, but
this system does not have a DOS partition.  I tried to put the TAPE.EXE
program on to a self-booting floppy disk, but when I rant the program, it
whined and complained about being unable to locate config.sys and
basically choked out on me.

Anyone know of a solution?

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1. ftape: status of formatter?

Hi.

I'm thinking about getting one of these cheap travan tape drives
to back up my linux machine from time to time.

The ftape howto states that there isn't yet a linux formatter for
the tapes, and suggests using a dos based formatter.

This is a bit of a problem for me, as I don't have a dos partition on
my machine at all.  Adding one would involve redoing the partitions
and such, which I'm not too enthused about doing.  I'd also like to
have a totally non-dos machine for various reasons.

Any info on when a formatter might be available for linux?
If its "not too long from now" then I can just buy preformatted
tapes and patiently wait.  If its "a long time coming" then I'll
maybe have to hold my nose and do the dos thing.

Another question: do I actually need a formatter anyway?  How
dicey is it to simply trust a pre-formatted travan (or whatever)
tape?  

thanks for any info!

--
Mike Harm

Psycholinguistics Lab
Univ. of Southern California
http://www-rcf.usc.edu/~mwharm/
---------------------------------------------------------------

   "Never drive a car when you're dead."     - Tom Waits

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