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Re: Formating a Travan 4 tape

 
Joseph Harder
Occasional Advisor

Formating a Travan 4 tape

I have a few problems that have come about as far as some tapes that I have. First off, buying new tapes is out of the question due to budget cuts. Why we did this I dont know. Anyone who's bought things for a company should understand the process of paperwork involved in getting any kind of equipment. A few hours on a noisy tape drive is better than waiting a month for a new tape (or several tapes).

I have some tapes that have been used about two times for backups and they currently have "unformatted sections" as CB2v9 reports.

Under the WinNT4 backup app, the feature to FORMAT, not erase, is on the list. However, it is not selectable.

CB2v9 under Win2K does not even offer the option except for security erase. This option just overwrites the tape, but does not remove bad blocks from the tape.

DOes anyone have/know of a way to format a 4GB/8GB travan tape? And no, formating a tape should take hours, not 2 minutes as the product literature specifies.
Harddisk platters make good wind-chimes.
2 REPLIES 2
BR664511
Advisor

Re: Formating a Travan 4 tape

Not sure if this will achieve a 'proper' format of the tape as you ask, but if you use the HP Tape Diagnostic Tool on a recognised drive, it will remove the usual backup 'formatting'. When the tape is used in a backup process, the tape requires 'initialisation' before it can be used.

Other thoughts... I have used an old Colorado backup programme (v2.90) on QIC-80 drives which has taken an eternity to format a 120MB tape (5-6 hours) - so this might be a solution, or have you tried Novaback+ for QIC or SCSI?

Hope the above helps.
Barry.
Joseph Harder
Occasional Advisor

Re: Formating a Travan 4 tape

Novaback+? I will look at that one. THankyou Barry.
Harddisk platters make good wind-chimes.