Restore WinXP tape backups in Win7?

Question

Hi there,
I was running Windows XP SP3 and I have recently installed Win7 (64-bit).  I have lots of LTO2 tapes containing data that I might need to access from Windows 7.  My question is: how do I access my LTO2 tape archives from within Windows 7?
The backups were created using NTbackup.exe on WinXP.  I have tried installing NTbackup.exe on Win7 but it complains that "The Backup Utility cannot connect to the Removable Storage service".  A little bit of Googling reveals that Microsoft have no plans to implement the Removable Storage service for Win7.
I have tried running NTbackup.exe from within Virtual XP but NTbackup.exe doesn't seem to be able to access my SCSI LTO drive (I have successfully installed the SCSI and LTO drivers on Win7 and I've attempted to install the drivers on the Virtual XP system).
I have attempted to use Windows 7's backup program but I can't figure out pursuade it to access my LTO drive!
Does anyone have any thoughts as to how I can access my old LTO tape archives from within Win7?
Many thanks,
Jack

Answer 1

Hi Jack:
(Uh-oh! Am I going to flagged as a terrorist for that greeting?!?)
All kidding aside. Not having access to your data is no joke.
That depends Jack.  If yo'ure talking about just getting access to the data to do restores, you could,
for example look into this tool:
BKF Repair Tool (Windows-based)
http://www.lotusnotesconversion.com/repair-bkf-file
This is a commercial tool, but the demo version claims to be able to read backup volume names
and the filenames/filespecs contained in those backups. Of course it also has the advantage of being
able to repair corrupted backups.
If I remember correctly, an older version exists which could be found on the web which was completely free
that included all functionality.
Boot to an earlier version of Windows
1. Boot from a separate Windows XP hard drive, if XP gave you access to your backup data
    I suppose you could try booting from BartPE or other bootable Windows XP CD/USB flash drive
    (also assuming XP gave you access to your tape drive).
2. If you boot a Linux LiveCD of some sort (I use Knoppix or Debian Lenny) and you're technically
savvy, then you could run a Linux command-line tool called mtf which allows you to access some
NTBackup or MS Backup tapes. I cannot vouch for its effectiveness-never tried it, but some
online posters say it worked fine. I also have no idea which versions of NTBackup .bkf files it
works with. Anecdoctal reports seem to suggest at least backups from Windows NT/2000/XP.
A quick check over at Microsoft's Developer Network website would prolly give you
some info. as to whether changes were made in .BKF format across newer versions of Windows.
Linux-based tools worth trying
This post below also makes mention of a fork done by another Linux-based tool, called
mtft ,
which was largely based on mtf. This tools claims to allow you to CONVERT .bkf backups to .tar format.
You'd then just need a tool which could read .tar files to restore the tape data, which would now be converted
to .tar format.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/reading-backup-tapes-from-m%24-to-linux-348429/
Direct link to mtft
http://linux.softpedia.com/developer/Internet-Connection-Inc-14459.html
Another Linux-based tool is called BackupReader
http://www.codeproject.com/KB/files/BackupReader.aspx
This is a GUI-based tool, borrowing code from William T. Kranz's ntbkup command-line based utility
BONUS: If you go to the link to Kranz's page, and the other pages there is a ton of technical info.
on the Microsoft tape format specification.
For actually doing new backups, I'm currently booting occasionally to Linux, and using the tar command
in Linux to do backups and restores. One could, of course,  install Unxutils or CygWin
(allows you to run some Posix-complaint command line tools such as MT or TAR in a Windows
environment).
If you hate command-line utilities (it's..er...an acquired taste for some of us) you could always
try KDat, which is a KDE (Gui-based) tool in Linux to do backups and restores. Although it
often presents error messages the first few times you use it, it is supposedly almost 100%
compatible with tar files and tapes. I believe there is a Windows version floating around
somewhere. You can also get Wintar for Windows, which IIRC, reads tapes, as well as just .tar
archive files.
Whew!
Hope this helps and is not too confusing for all of you.