C1533A inconsistencies

[Barry Blesser]

I have two nominally equivalent external C1533A's, one a DAT8 and the other a SureStore 8000, both running under Win2k using NovaBack 6.7 backup software. Yes, I know that they are slightly different. On the SureStore, everything works perfectly. However, the Dat8 can read and write tapes but only if they SureStore had first been written to by another DAT. A new tape can be formated on the Dat8, but the NovaBack fails because the header has not been successfully written. Both drives pass all the LTT diagnostics, and verify shows all is correct.

Can anyone think of a reason why the Dat8 cannot write to a new tape after being formated? It can read and write a used tape, either 90m or 120m.