Just out of curiosity..

From: Ernest <ernestls_at_home.com>
Date: Thu Aug 23 23:09:07 2001

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
> [mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of Jim Tuck
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 8:44 PM
> To: Classiccmp (E-mail)
> Subject: Just out of curiosity..
>
>
> Just out of curiosity, how often do y'all get 'data retreival' requests,
> where some schmuck tosses you a tape from 1980 and needs the
> data?

I've had a few. I had one lady come to me with an old AT$T 6300 case (no
keyboard or monitor,) and asked if I would retrieve her Family Tree Maker
database files off of the HD. I told her that I would give it a shot but it
might take a while. Three or four months later, I was able to locate a
monitor and keyboard for it but when I turned it on, the 10meg MFM drive was
unbootable.
I created another Dos 3.3 boot disk, and was able to access the drive enough
to run a drive repair program that took several hours to repair the disk
enough for me to retrieve her database files. As a consultant, I really
shouldn't have accepted this job but it sure did make me feel good to be
able to give her those files, and I learned a thing or two about why
hardware standards are better.

There was another guy who brought in an old SCO-Unix box with a big tape
drive (I can't remember the style but IBM used the same drive on their
AS/400s. That was a lot of fun -NOT! There's nothing more fun than trying to
retrieve data from an old tape, on an OS that you have never worked with, in
a computer that might not even work. It still makes me laugh when I think
about it but I was able to get his data off the tape, which the drive
promptly ate when I tried to eject it. I still can't remember how I was able
to get the data from the tape, but getting the data from HD onto a disk
format that he could use with his Mac was the tough part. I still shake my
head on that one -of all the stupid jobs to accept. Never again.

Ernest
Received on Thu Aug 23 2001 - 23:09:07 BST