I assume that there's a tape drive on the machine. I'll also assume that it's running the ext2 filesystem (a pretty safe bet if it's been in place for years).

You need to determine the device name of the tape drive. It will be a file in the /dev filesystem. Unfortunately, this is going to be a little hard to determine. Do an ``ls /dev/*mt*'' and see what you get. You probably want the one numbered 0.

Then pop in a tape and run ``mt -f /dev/<device found> status'' and see if you get reasonable looking info. (Replace ``<device found> with the device you found above.) If so:

Run ``tar cf /dev/<device> /''. This will take a long time. Once it's done, run ``mt -f /dev/<device> rewind''. Then run ``tar tf /dev/<device>'' and see if the filles are listed back out.

This is very simple, but it should at least get you a copy of the data onto tape.

There's some reasonably complete information at http://www.storagemountain.com, nee BackupCentral.