From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Aug 12 21:23:06 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id VAA07197 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 12 Aug 1998 21:23:06 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id VAA07175 for ; Wed, 12 Aug 1998 21:22:45 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@freebie.lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) with ESMTP id NAA00810; Thu, 13 Aug 1998 13:52:04 +0930 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.9.1/8.9.0) id NAA01666; Thu, 13 Aug 1998 13:52:05 +0930 (CST) Message-ID: <19980813135205.G1147@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1998 13:52:05 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: Chuck Robey Cc: "Robert D. Keys" , FreeBSD-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: WangDat 3100 SCSI tape (cleaning always good) References: <19980813124140.B1147@freebie.lemis.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.91.1i In-Reply-To: ; from Chuck Robey on Wed, Aug 12, 1998 at 10:37:03PM -0400 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wednesday, 12 August 1998 at 22:37:03 -0400, Chuck Robey wrote: > > On Thu, 13 Aug 1998, Greg Lehey wrote: > >> On Wednesday, 12 August 1998 at 10:09:51 -0400, Robert D. Keys wrote: >>>> On Tuesday, 11 August 1998 at 0:13:30 -0400, Chuck Robey wrote: >>> In my experiences that probably points to a dirty tape drive head. >>> >>> I run a lot of different tape drives on my old junque, all ancient things, >>> and there are two problems that seem to surface that folks might pay >>> attention to. (speaking about older DC600, DC5160 type cartridge drives). >>> >>> 1. Clean the tape heads with a q-tip and some isopropyl alcohol, about >>> every 10 tape runs on tapes that are used. I find that errors start >>> to magically appear about that time, with regularity. >> >> I've tried this on DDS tapes, with very limited success. But you >> should run a cleaning tape about this often. More modern drives will >> remind you by blinking an LED if you forget. > > The drive I was talking about is some miles away from me, but I think > I'm gonna hop in the car and take some alcohol. I used to clean heads > with a (now ancient) reel-to-reel tape deck, and I feel comfortable with > that. I know those cleaning tapes are abrasive, and still sometimes > miss subborn specs. The only thing is, I haven't yet seen this unit, is > it helical scan? Man, cleaning the tape, then, is gonna be an > adventure. Yup, it's helical scan. I've never been successful with swabs and alcohol. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message