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We've got some old (very) data on Verbatim DC6250 tapes that needs to be read and no hardware to do it with. What drive(s) will read these tapes?

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According to this, it's a 250MB QIC tape. (Quarter Inch Cartridge)

I would've thought it was a dead format, but there's a QIC industry organization and their home page makes it sound like you can get drives. OTOH, it looks like more search results are for used drives, e.g. this one. But at least there are some cheap options.

Depending on how old the tapes are and how well they've been stored, I wouldn't put a lot of money into getting a drive, if it's important data, sure $50 no problem. Any idea what software was used to write the tapes? I have no idea how standardized the data format on QICs is.

If you do buy a drive, buy some blank tapes to practice with before trying to restore your "real" tapes. One failure mode for tapes is that the oxide comes off when they're being used, so you don't want to use the old tapes any more than absolutely necessary.

Ward - Trying Codidact
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  • Thanks for the advice regarding the oxide. This should be enough to get us started in finding a tape drive. –  Oct 14 '09 at 09:09
  • Looks like QIC organisation specifies a file format for the tapes. Hopefully they were written with compliant software. Apparently the bundled Windows Backup software is compliant... –  Oct 14 '09 at 09:13