[SunRescue] Playing with my tape drive, got some questions... (also, anyone n eed TR-4 tapes?)

[Ken Hansen]

I seem to recall that if you hold down the eject button while
powering-up the unit, it will "reset" the drive. This may or
may not be true, please get outside confirmation before
attempting this, and please report back the error messages you
get (if any).

I wonder if these units know when they haven't been cleaned in
a very long time, and refuse to work until they are? Just a
thought...

Hope you didn't pay too much for the drive - BTW, anyone know
a good, low-price service facility for these drives (i.e. less
than $200!)

Ken Hansen ICTI
Ken.Hansen at icti-usa.com


-----Original Message-----
From: John F. Davis [mailto:davis at skink.net]
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2000 5:13 PM
To: Ken Hansen
Subject: Re: [SunRescue] Playing with my tape drive, got some
questions... (also, anyone n eed TR-4 tapes?)


On Mon, Jun 05, 2000 at 04:27:52PM -0400, Ken Hansen wrote:
> I finally pulled down my 8mm Sun/Exabyte (Exabyte 8200 in Sun lunch-box
> case) drive
> and am starting to play with it, and I have a few questions:
> 
> 	- Tape cleaners - how often, suggested method - cleaning tape?
> 
> 	- Media - this is an EX-8200 drive, so anything longer than 112
> meters
> 	  is pointless? My understanding is that this drive is good for 2
> Gig
> 	  (no compression available).
> 
> 	- Where to get media - what brands are considered "good"? Cost
> appears
> 	  to hover around $4.25 - $5.00/112m DAT tape, is that about right?
> 
> 	- How to reset an Exabyte drive? I have three drives, the one
> mentioned
> 	  above appears fine, then I have a coupe more "bare" Exabytes that
> I
> 	  think need to be reset (one just spits the tape out as soon as I
> put it in)
> 	  or at least cleaned severly. (I haven't powered up the third one)
> Any
> 	  pointers to FAQ or other info-bases on these older 8mm drives?
> 
> Also, I found Ihave 11 or 12 TR-4 tapes new in the box (un-opened) - I
think
> these
> are quite expensive, and take 4/8 Gig (IIRC). I got these in anticipation
of
> a new
> drive for anold PC, but the drive never came - anyone buy one of those
cheap
> TR-4 SCSI drives and need tapes? Drop me a note off-list if interested...
If
> these
> tapes are still as expensive as I remember, I would be happy to trade 1
TR-4
> for two 8mm 112 meter tapes...

Hello

I bought a 8200 off ebay recently.  I can't get it to work.  Please
let me know if you get it to work.  Each time, I get an error saying
the drive returned an unknown error.

I tried a sparclx, a win95 computer with an existing pci scsi controller,
and
a new adapted 2930u2w.  All work ok with other scsi devices.  I used an 
8mm 112 meter tape.

John


> 
> Thanks in advance,
> 
> Ken
> 
> Ken Hansen ICTI
> Ken.Hansen at icti-usa.com
> 
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