6 Jan
2011
6 Jan
'11
5:08 p.m.
Zane writes:
I'm getting ready to test out my 9-Track tape
drive before hauling it
into work for some data recovery. I have a box of brand new tapes,
which unfortunately haven't been stored under ideal conditions for
most of their life (they're probably about 20 years old). Currently
they're in the garage, which at the moment is close to freezing. How
should I go about bringing the tapes to room temp?
If they've been stored under poor conditions for 20 years, I'm not
sure exactly how they're treated in the next few days is gonna matter.
If they had data on them and had seen temperature swings, you might
want to retension them before using. But if they're blank and gonna
be used for testing the transport anyway, hard to see how this can matter.
I would be hesitant to retension a tape with valuable data on a drive
that had the head in contact with the tape. (Stiction). Retensioning
is far from a cure-all.
Why does the concept of retensioning exist at all? If a tape
is stored under adverse temperature or humidity conditions, the
different rate of thermal expansion of the reel and tape, or
between the inner tape and outer tape, can cause "bumps" to
form in the winding and require an uneven rate of rotation
of the hub to spool off the tape at 25 IPS or 75 IPS or
whatever the drive runs at.
Tim.