[FG4001] - On a tape cartridge the type is printed only, no capacity specification can be found. How much data can be stored on the tape?

Backup in general:

 
DAT-Cartridges:

Type                   Capacity (uncompressed/native)
DDS[tm]-1 (60 m)        1,3 GB
DDS[tm]-1 (90 m)        2,0 GB
DDS[tm]-2 (120 m)       4,0 GB
DDS[tm]-3 (125 m)      12,0 GB
DDS[tm]-4 (150 m)      20,0 GB
 
SLR[tm]-Cartridges:

Type                   Capacity (uncompressed/native)
SLR[tm]-5               4,0 GB
SLR[tm]-6              12,0 GB
SLR[tm]-24             12,0 GB
SLR[tm]-32             16,0 GB
SLR[tm]-50             25,0 GB

Hint 1: Sometimes capacity figures are given which are twice the native capacity listed here. For those values it is assumed that a data compression ratio of 2:1 can be accomplished. Whether this may be feasible also depends on the type of data. If the tape drive is equipped with a built in compression hardware, this feature should be enabled. However, an additional software compression should be turned off then since this may have negative impact on the overall compression ratio.

[FE9008] - I got a CD-ROM which, according to documentation, is bootable (i. e. the operating system will be started directly from CD). Which settings on the PC are necessary to support that?

PC in general, SCSI-CD-ROM drive:

Basically these conditions must be fulfilled:

1. In the BIOS settings of the PC the system's boot sequence must be set to "CD, C ..." so that the CD-ROM is searched for a boot sector before the harddisk (which may contain an operating system already). In general, this entry is set to "C, A ..." for normal operating mode.
2. In the settings of the SCSI controller the support of bootable CD-ROMs must be enabled.
3. The microcode of both the PC BIOS and the BIOS on the SCSI controller and the CD-ROM drive must support the data formats of the CD-ROM (i.e. "El Torito"-format). If not, an update is required first (check with vendor/manufacturer or your support).

Hint 1: With ASUS® P2B and Adaptec[tm] AHA[tm] 2940 booting from CD-ROM with these settings might work only after a "cold start" (power off/on), but not after a reboot triggered by software or [Ctrl]-[Alt]-[Del] keystroke! If a new operating system is to be installed on a "fresh" (not partitioned) harddisk, the box is first powered on, booted from CD-ROM and the disk is partitioned by means of FDISK. Then, the machine will be restarted by software to allow formatting the newly created partition(s). This second start will fail since it is no "cold start". In this case, simply power off/on the PC so that it will boot from CD-ROM to allow the installation sequence to continue.

Hint 2: Do not forget to switch back the BIOS settings to the normal start sequence to prevent the system from booting from CD-ROM later on by accident (virus intrusion).