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The only way I know to read from an LTO tape drive is with big, heavy tools like Backup Exec.

I am looking for a light weight or free tool that can read files from an LTO tape drive attached to a Windows server. Preferably the tool would let me inventory the backup sessions on a tape and choose one or more files to read from the tape to disk. If the backup is encrypted, (hardware encryption in the tape drive), I would need to be able to enter the crypto key.

Jonesome Reinstate Monica
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The assumption you're making here is that there is a single LTO tape format.

There isn't.

Each backup software does it their own way. Some use TAR format from UNIXland, the rest do their own thing. This makes a 'simple option' nonexistent.

sysadmin1138
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  • According to wikipedia, ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backup_Exec ) "Backup Exec shares the same Microsoft Tape Format with Windows' built-in NTBackup." So in Win-land, there seems to be standard tape layout. And.... I guess the simple tool is NTBackup! – Jonesome Reinstate Monica Jan 15 '14 at 04:47
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    Maybe specific versions are supposed to be compatible, but it certainly didn't work for me in the past. – JamesRyan Jan 15 '14 at 12:55
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    There are some free tools that can read Microsoft Tape Format (and it is true that Backup Exec uses MTF), but as soon as you bring in encryption I suspect you're probably well outside the standard. – Evan Anderson Jan 15 '14 at 23:46
  • @EvanAnderson You may be right RE encryption. The flip side is that encryption is usually done in the tape drive itself (in my case it certainly is). Whether that is part of MTF or not, I do not know. (I am trying to set up a test rig.... no luck yet getting it all together) – Jonesome Reinstate Monica Jan 17 '14 at 23:10