I hate HP 914x tapes

[Sven Schnelle]

Al,


thank you putting so much effort into reading these old Tapes. Really

appreciate it.


Sven


On 07/13/2018 06:35 PM, Al Kossow via cctalk wrote:
> 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.
>