26 Jul
1998
26 Jul
'98
4:16 a.m.
Start by cleaning the head and drive roller. I've
done plenty of
electronic repairs and mods on these drives, but never tried to re-align
one. I assume there's an alignment tape (which I've never seen)...
The drive roller was a mess, black gunk getting onto the tape casesm
fortunately not the tape itself, I cleaned it up a bit and it now seems
to turn the tape easier. I'll try cleaning the head tomorrow
You do realise, I assume, that some of these drives
were 4 track, not the
later 9 track. You're not trying to read a tape written on a 9-track
drive, are you?
I'd say the tapes match the machine, the tapes are marked SunOS 3.2 68010
Export (boot format) and the one time I got SunOS started of the HDD it
was the same version exactly. I actually have the HDD backups on 1/2"
tape, but none of them are bootable. It is possible the tapes have died,
but I heard of the old sysadmin who operated the machine that the tape
drive was "not quite right".
Cheers
Karl
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Karl Maftoum
Computer Engineering student at the University of Canberra, Australia
Email: k.maftoum(a)student.canberra.edu.au