Tape media

From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh_at_aracnet.com>
Date: Sun Mar 23 01:31:00 2003

> so I sorted through my last weekend's bait, hooked up my new HSZ40
> (with 50 GB in 4 StorageWorks boxes plus all sorts of tape drives,
> TSZ07, TLZ07, TZ68, and ~88) to my PC for FreeBSD. It's so much
> fun to read a 9-track reel from a FreeBSD PC (just too bad it doesn't
> have a transparent top cover to show off the reels).
>
> I have bulk-erased a bunch of TK50 tapes in the hopes that they
> would work as DLT III and IV tapes as well, but these drives
> still went into write-protect mode. Does anyone here know details
> about the DLT media? I mean it is a well-known fact (and I proved
> it to myself many times) that CompacTape I works just fine as
> CompacTape II. So why not as III and IV? Is it really the tape
> or might it be some notches on the cassette that are used to
> code the kind of tape?
>
> The problem is I didn't get any tape media for my nice DLT tape drives
> and this stuff is so darn expensive if bought new. Any ideas?

I really hope you didn't wreck that TZ86 and TZ88, thankfully these are the
DEC drives and I think they might be more forgiving than something like a
DLT2000 or DLT4000 drive. IIRC, the TZ86 is capable of reading TK50 and
TK70 tapes. There is a drastic difference between TK50/70 and DLT III & IV
media! I don't remember the specifics on the differences, part of it is
that it writes in a different manner, and part is that the tape is
different.
        
                        Zane
Received on Sun Mar 23 2003 - 01:31:00 GMT