Jerome Fine replies: As almost everyone will warn you, probably most, if not all of the media, also have servo tracks which must remain if the media are to be useful by normal users in the future. FOR SURE that is the case with the RL01/RL02 media. What is required, if you want the media to remain useful, is to use the normal hardware and write in the normal way anything else in place of the current data. Normally, a pass of all zeros followed by all ones will do the job - unless you get the CIA involved - then you probably need to have about seven passes at the minimum (so I have heard) with random values in each pass. But I suspect that two passes with zeros and ones should be adequate for data that is not related to national security. Also, you are supposed to erase them within 1 microsecond, 1 million microseconds, 1 trillion microseconds? Depending on the answer, as long as you erase them before passing them on, you can wait to obtain the correct hardware that is needed. Sincerely yours, Jerome Fine -- If you attempted to send a reply and the original e-mail address has been discontinued due a high volume of junk e-mail, then the semi-permanent e-mail address can be obtained by replacing the four characters preceding the 'at' with the four digits of the current year.

Tim, As others have written, don't bulk erase the packs, or they will be rendered useless. At 3:16 AM -0800 1/23/03, Tim Myers wrote: Do you have any plans for these packs? I have an RL controller for my /73 but no drives or packs yet. Are you planning on parting with any? If so, where are you? I'm in Pasadena, California. Thanks, John --------------------------------------------------------- John A. Dundas III Director, Information Technology Services Infrastructure, Caltech Mail Code: 014-81, Pasadena, CA 91125-8100 Phone: 626.395.3392 FAX: 626.449.6973 <mailto:dundas@caltech.edu>