[rescue] VS80 DLT tape drive question

[Earl Baugh]

Could be for security reasons.    When I was working in the Pentagon they
had a HUGE device for erasing tapes, hard drives, etc.
It was about 10 feet high, and looked like a big set of drawers with
stainless steel fronts.   You went there with stuff, put it in a drawer and
then went "safely into another room" (if they had enough to zap) to watch.
(You sometimes had to go back later once they had enough of a full load).
When the degaussing field kicked on you could hear the hard drives banging
from the front to the back of the drawers as the field literally slid them
around the drawers.   Very cool, and somewhat scary...

Earl



--- William Enestvedt <William.Enestvedt at jwu.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Curt asked:
> > >
> > > What sort of bulk eraser would be required to do
> > DLT tape ?
> > >
> >    I can find out what we're using to zap hard
> > drives & DLTs. Let me
> > send someone a message.
>
> Hard drives?!?! How would a bulk eraser help with hard
> drives? All modern drives (AFAIK) have embedded servo
> tracks, and if you bulk erase it, you'll destroy it -
> it can't be reformatted. How does this work, or am I
> missing something?
>
> -Ian
>
>
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> End of rescue Digest, Vol 61, Issue 10
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