1 Sep
2008
1 Sep
'08
10:20 p.m.
At 12:24 AM -0400 9/2/08, Patrick Finnegan wrote:
On Monday 01 September 2008, Tom Peters wrote:
We used to regularly degauss DLT III and DLT IV media at work, with
positive results. IIRC, we also degaussed SDLT tapes. The important
thing is having a degausser capable of doing the job right. At one
point we had people that would degauss every tape prior to putting it
in a tape library, now they only do select "problem" tapes.
Over the years we've chipped millions of dollars worth of used DLT
and SDLT tapes as we upgraded to newer revisions. :^( Though when
possible we provide them to other groups in the company that are
using the older drives.
Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh at aracnet.com (primary) | OpenVMS Enthusiast |
| MONK::HEALYZH (DECnet) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
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| PDP-10 Emulation and Zane's Computer Museum. |
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At 06:21 PM 9/1/2008 -0400, you wrote:
Not on DLT. DLT is serpentine, and without any servo track. SuperDLT
has an "optical" servo track, so it's also safe to degauss.
In fact, to write to DLT media in at a different density than it was
recorded at (eg, DLT4000 vs 7000 vs 8000), you have to degauss it
first. I also have boxes upon boxes of (used and
degaussed) DLT-4 media.
I'd like to get about $1/tape for that.
With the servo track erased by degaussing, aren't they doorstops? My
understanding was that there is a timing track written at
manufacture, and it can't be put back with a standard tape drive.
Inquiring minds want to know.