Drive inventory

From: Tothwolf <tothwolf_at_concentric.net>
Date: Thu Feb 14 04:10:31 2002

On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Sellam Ismail wrote:
> On Wed, 13 Feb 2002, Tothwolf wrote:
>
> > Not all brands of drives use the same cable, there are about half a dozen
> > different cables out there for these drives. You can't connect more than
> > one floppy tape drive to the floppy interface at the same time. They will
> > conflict with each other if you do.
>
> Only if they are being used simultaneously, no?

If you connect more than one tape drive to the floppy interface, they will
conflict with each other. Even if you disconnect their power connector,
but leave the data cable connected, you will have "weird" problems.

> > > I guess what I really want to know is if the various tape drives from
> > > different manufacturers for a certain specification, say QIC-40/80,
> > > read and write the same low- or high-level format. So for instance,
> > > if I create a tape on a Colorado drive and stick it into a Conner
> > > drive, will the Conner be able to read it?
> >
> > Not always. Many manufacturers used their own formats, especially for the
> > 40MB tapes.
>
> Wonderful.

Yup, it is. Your best bet might be to pick up nearly every tape drive you
find that isn't identical to one you already have...unless you want spares
anyway.

-Toth
Received on Thu Feb 14 2002 - 04:10:31 GMT