I hate HP 914x tapes

[Al Kossow]

Man, these things are annoying.

All of the bands are bad, and they leave residue on the spools.
There are no EOT BOT holes on the HP tape, and the drive locks
the cartridge until you 'unload' it, which spins to the EOT soft
region. Well, guess what, they leave the tape in a position where
the residue ends up near the last block on the track, so it will
read track 1 (4mb), or maybe 1-3 (12mb), then fail when it hits
the gunk.

You DON'T want to bake that gunk on! It is possible to remove it
but DO NOT EVER USE ALCOHOL ON A QIC TAPE! It instantly takes off
the binder. Water-based cleaner (like whiteboard cleaner) seems to
work but it is extremely difficult to work with the tape and not
damage it.

My sympathies to anyone having to deal with recovery of this media.