QIC 40/80 Tape Backups Use a QIC-117 Driver in Windows NT

• Microsoft Windows NT operating system version 3.1
• Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1

Windows NT supports the use of the QIC-40/QIC-80 tape backup drives. However, the driver they use is named QIC-117.SYS; there are no files named QIC-40.SYS or QIC-80.SYS.

According to the QIC documentation, QIC-40 and QIC-80 are two types of "Flexible-Disk-Controller-Compatible Recording Format for Information Interchange." The specifications are as follows:

   20 tracks, 10,000 bpi, MFM Encoded (QIC-40)
   28 tracks, 14,700 bpi, MFM Encoded (QIC-80)

Therefore, QIC-40/80 is the name of a physical format standard and QIC-117 is the name of the command set used on QIC-40/80 drives, which is why the driver is named QIC-117.SYS in Windows NT. In other words, QIC-117 is the interface used to communicate with the drive while QIC-40/80 is the physical format used on the tape. Windows NT Backup uses Microsoft Tape Format (MTF) as its native format. MTF is not read or write compatible with QIC-40/80. Thus you cannot exchange tapes between Windows NT Backup, which uses MTF, and Colorado Memory Systems' Backup software, which uses QIC-40/80.

The QIC products included here are manufactured by a vendor independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.