DDS3 DAT tape ejected immediately

[James Whelpton]

Having received some data from one of our customers, when I attempt to load the 2 Verbatim DDS3 DAT tapes into our HP9000/D330 (HP-UX 11) they are ejected immediately. I then checked some of our own DDS1/DDS2/DDS3 tapes and they all load ok and remain in the drive. Visually they look identical and all the tapes load fine into a DDS3 drive on our NT server. I have never come across a problem like this before, can anyone explain / solve this for me?

[Naveej.K.A]

hi,

are you inserting a cleaning catridge???
Cleaning catridge goes inside the drive, when pushed, comes back after cleaning the drive.

Or you might be inserting a DDS4 catridge into the drive.
Insert a dds3 tape and if stays inside, see what mt status returns on your D330

with best wishes
Naveej

[Shaikh Imran]

Hi,
I think the tape i not compatible as verbatim tapes are 3.81mm tapes where as HP-DDS3 Tape drives are compatible with 4mm Tapes.
See the below comparison:
Manufacturer :Verbatim
Capacity Uncompressed :12 GB
Capacity w/Compression :24 GB
Compatibility :DDS-3
Length :125m
Media Type :Cartridge
Media Type :4mm
Media Type :DDS-3
Size Media :4mm
Tape Width :3.81mm

==================================================
Manufacturer :HP
Capacity Uncompressed :12 GB
Capacity w/Compression :24 GB
Compatibility 4m DAT Tape Drives:DDS-3
Length :125m
Media Type :4mm
Media Type :DDS-3
Media Type :DAT
Media Type :Cartridge
Size Media :4mm
Tape Width :4mm


Regards,

[James Whelpton]

Thank you Shaikh it certainly sounds like a valid explanation.

It worries me though that the Verbatim DDS3 tapes are marked exactly as per any other from an external point of view and yet they are a different spec. Could it be that our DDS3 drive is old and will not cope with the Verbatim tapes since I would have expected this issue to have a higher profile on the web?

[Bharat Katkar · Accepted solution]

Yes and it may be a fulty Tape as well. In case with any reasons if tape inside is stucked or tighten drive will simply eject out the tape.

Regards,

[James Whelpton]

Just checked out the HP DDS3 (Serial no C5708A) specification and they are also 3.81mm wide and so I think that this is not the problem.
I know the customer read the tapes back after writing and so it looks like some incompatibility - possibly the tension as mentioned above.

Thank you all for your time and feedback.

[Shaikh Imran]

hi,
I don't think your DDS3 Dat Drive is old enough as it seems to be standard for most
of the currently used servers.
I have given you the specs of the DDS-3 Drive and i don't think it has something to do with the old or new..

BTW,
Since you said you have received some data from you customer,if the customer is in reachable limit, i will advise you to ask him to send the data in HP-DDS3 Tapes or Also you can send these tapes back to him
so as to verify it's bad tape ( to confirm Mr Bharat's Post )or it's still readable on the Verbatim or other drives.
Or if possible Just ask him to burn a CD and send the data to avoid all these complexities.

Regards,

[James Whelpton]

I am resigned to taking new tapes/CD's as there appears to be no answer to this.

The HP support team have been sympathetic and could not think of any reason other than something about the physical "cassette" being out of tolerance for our drive. They have never come across this before and at the end of the day can only recommend using HP tapes.

Since our customer is in Ireland, I am going to send them some tapes that I know work on our drive and see what happens.

Best Regards

[James Whelpton]

Finally got to the bottom of this having spoken with our customer to quiz them about any problems they might have with their DAT drive.

Apparently they have trouble with tapes being ejected from their DAT drive and so whenever they buy new tapes, they have to modify the holes that appear on the underside of the tape. They punch all the blanking plastic out of the three holes that appear together on one edge of the tape casstte. I was in shock and have not yet asked who/how they discovered this trick!!

On investigation, these holes are how most drives detect the tape quality (DDS1, DDS2 or DDS3) and since the pattern of holes didn't match any of these types the HP drive rejected the tapes.

With sticky tape I carefully re-covered the holes and discovered the tapes were actually written as DDS1. The HP drive accepted them and I could then read them successfully.

It most likely will never occur again but that's what had happened!

[Shaikh Imran]

Hi,
Nice to hear that your problem is sorted out.
But i don't think this is the right way but whatever works is right at this time.
Thanks a lot for you info..


Regards

Imran Shaikh

[Dave Dewar]

Hi,

Couple of things here, firstly the tape width on all DDS media is 3.81mm, HP round it up to 4mm in the labelling etc. Tape width is not the issue.

Secondly, it is not a good idea to do as your customer was doing and alter in any way the holes on the bottom of the cartridge. As you discovered this is the root of the issue. This is not some clever trick they are doing and they should not have to alter the holes to fix their "eject" problem and in fact it will only make things worse as you have seen.

The drive uses the holes to determine whether it is using a DDS1,2,3 etc tape. It will then write the appropriate format to the tape. By altering the tapes they will end up writing the wrong format to the tape or even worse the drive could think they have inserted a cleaning cartridge or have produced an invalid hole configuration that the drive will not recognise.

Please discourage you customer from doing this in the future

Cheers,

Dave Dewar

[Marino Meloni_1]

Also my five cents,
the holes are used to identify the cartridge model as said by Dave, If you customer use the cartridge as a DDS1 because he covered all holes, be aware that he will never be able to use again the 12/24 gb capacity of the cartridge, because the unit will write down using different magnetic field and you will not be able to remove this trace in order to write as a DDS3.
So I think the best way to solve is to send back the cartridge to the productor and asl for compatible DDS3 cartridges.

Marino