Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media

[Jerome H. Fine]

 >Alexandre Souza wrote:

> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark J. Blair" <nf6x at nf6x.net>
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" 
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
> Sent: Tuesday, January 27, 2015 3:04 PM
> Subject: Destructive Imaging of DECTAPE II Media
>
> [Snip]
>
> What do you folks think about this silliness?

It has been over 2 years since I last used my TU58 tape drive,
but it was still working then with (of course USABLE) TU58
tapes, although a good percentage were no longer in that
category.  If it seems reasonable, I can try to see if the TU58
tape drive will still function correctly.

If the TU58 tapes which need to be recovered can still be
read by a TU58 drive, then I could undertake to recover
those ones.  Note that I am in Toronto, so postage would
be MUCH more than within the US.

Unfortunately, there is no visual difference between tapes
which can still be read and those which have errors that
can't be recovered.  But if the tape can't even be moved
or the drive belt is broken, either of those problems would
prevent a standard DEC  TU58 drive from being able to
recover any data from the tape.

Jerome Fine