SCSI Tape drive problem

[Matthew Seaman]

On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 09:18:27AM -0600, Doug Poland wrote:

> I'm running 4.9-STABLE on a box with an older HP 35480A DDS tape
> drive.  Recently the drive started spitting out any tape I insert.
> It simply will not accept any tape I load.  I've tried 5 different
> tapes and it does the same thing.  Loads, lights blink for a second
> or two, and the tape is spit back out.
> 
> Is this thing dead?  Given its age and limited storage capacity, I
> would imagine that repair is not a cost-effective option.

Sounds pretty dead to me.  You might be able to resurrect it by
stripping it down (I'm guessing it's way out of warranty by now...)
and cleaning out any dust and gunk from the mechanism.  Cotton buds
and iso-propanol can do wonders in the hands of an adept -- however,
don't try and clean the recording heads directly, as they can by quite
sensitive.  If you can, run a new cleaning tape on it a few times.  No
guarrantees that this will work at all though.

Chances are it's just plain worn out.  Tape drives don't have
particularly great longevity.  Hmmm... 35480A -- goggle, google.
That's a DDS-DC (somewhere between DDS-1 and DDS-2) or 2--4Gb
capacity.  Yup.  It's pretty much worthless, even if it was in fully
working order.  Bin it, and maybe buy a DVD+RW which will have a
greater capacity and cost a great deal less to run.

	Cheers,

	Matthew


-- 
Dr Matthew J Seaman MA, D.Phil.                       26 The Paddocks
                                                      Savill Way
PGP: http://www.infracaninophile.co.uk/pgpkey         Marlow
Tel: +44 1628 476614                                  Bucks., SL7 1TH UK
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