Sony Superstation

["Gregory Lampshire" <gregory_lampshire@hotmail.com>]

I wish I would have found your web page earlier, but I believe that I
purchased my Sony Superstation before you put up your web page on your
issues w/ the Sony drive.

I also bought this drive thinking that it was a good deal.  But
interestingly enough, when I went to restore my files system after a crash I
discovered that all of my backups (about 4 tapes worth) were bad.  Although
I had tested the software on my NT4.0 machine to ensure that it worked (and
it passed okay), apparently, it is possible to overrun the directory portion
of the backup tape if you have too many files (I have many, many small
files).  Hence, none of my backups actually worked unless I had chunked my
filesystem up into manageable chunks.  One trick I finally learned was to
create a ntbackup archive file on disk then backup that single archive file
to the tape drive.

For the past 2-3 years or so it has been worthless junk and tech support has
not been all that helpful. I did manage to snag the 3.1D version of the
Backup Exec software, but alas, it also has problems w/ many files.

Recently, the W2K Pro drivers came out and the ntbackup program seems to
recognize the drive but since my media has been formatted w/ the Backup
Exec, I am unable to use my existing media (ntbackup crashes when I click
"Yes" to the reformat question).  3.1D does not work on W2K because the
install program claims that I am not running one of the approved Windows OS
versions (and apcompat does not work).  I had hoped that ntbackup would work
but the formatting issues seems to crash it every time, oh well. I believe
the total wait time for the W2K drivers was approximately 9 months after
they were first mentioned they would be available.  Interestingly enough,
the Sony web page suggests using the latest Veritas Backup Exec software
even though it's not officially supported.  When I tried to install it, it
said that laptop.sys was incompatible w/ the software and the install would
not continue.  I will try cycling through my tapes in the hope that one of
them can be reformatted and ntbackp can therefore work w/ it.

I have to admit I miss the simplicity and ease of use of tar to a device
under Unix OSs.  It always worked for me w/out the hassle.

I have clearly wasted many hours trying to get this drive to work well w/ my
setup and meet my fairly simple backup needs.  The drive has never performed
that function and based on my experience, I will avoid all Sony products,
especially their computing products, in the future.


cheers,
gregory