From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Jan 28 08:29:20 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A42916A4CE for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 08:29:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from galilee.polands.org (CPE-24-29-189-110.new.rr.com [24.29.189.110]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 62C9843D2F for ; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 08:29:17 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from doug@polands.org) Received: from email.polands.org (samaria.polands.org [172.16.1.17]) by galilee.polands.org (8.12.9/8.12.9) with SMTP id i0SGTGkj043202; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:29:16 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from doug@polands.org) Received: from 69.48.112.132 (SquirrelMail authenticated user djp) by email.polands.org with HTTP; Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:29:16 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <2968.69.48.112.132.1075307356.squirrel@email.polands.org> In-Reply-To: <20040128162159.GA44632@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> References: <2481.69.48.112.132.1075303107.squirrel@email.polands.org> <20040128162159.GA44632@happy-idiot-talk.infracaninophile.co.uk> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 10:29:16 -0600 (CST) From: "Doug Poland" To: "Matthew Seaman" User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 X-Priority: 3 Importance: Normal cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: SCSI Tape drive problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:29:20 -0000 Matthew Seaman said: > 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. > I figured as much... thanks for the info. -- Regards, Doug