TR-4 tape problem

[Fred Kleinberg]

Recently inherited over 20 IMATION TR-4 tape cartridges. Using an HP Travan 8GB tape drive with STOMP BackupMyPC, get an unrecoverable hardware error for all operations. Tried tapediag.exe and get "wrong tape." Tried firmware upgrade - no change. Can't re-format -can't do anything. I'm assuming that the previous backup hardware/software customized all of the tapes. Is there anything that will "shock" these tapes into behaving?

[Munir_1]

What O/S are you runing??

[Fred Kleinberg]

WIN98-SE

[Munir_1]

What you can try is install CBII 8.0 and try to CBII to format the tapes, or run retention on them using CBII software
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?locale=en_US〈=English+%28US%29&pnameOID=12504&prodSeriesId=63937&prodTypeId=12169&basePartNum=COL2293&locBasepartNum=co-10416-1&os=Microsoft+Windows+98&tech=Application

[Fred Kleinberg]

Not a bad idea - Tried it - N/G; Turns out that STOMP BackupMyPC is a more advanced version (2003) of the CO-Backup 8.0 (1999). There may not be a solution... Aaaargh!

[Munir_1]

If other tapes working ok, it could be that all 20 IMATION TR-4 tapes are bad.

Munir!

[Fred Kleinberg]

It's possible, but they were all working when the drive and the tapes were taken out of service. I'm trying to determine the OS and app that were run prior to me.

[BR664511]

Re Formatting tapes, have you tried using HP TapeDiag to read/write test the drive & your inmation tapes? When the TapeDaig overwrites the tape most backup progs then need to 'initialise' the tape before use. This may overcome your problem.

Hope this helps.
Barry.

[Fred Kleinberg]

Tapediag.exe will not perform the read and write tests on the tape - says the tape is the "wrong type." Makes no sense at all.

Also, I've determined that the previous drive and software were: HP 8GB, Colo Backup, WIN95.

[Munir_1]

You should try contacting Imation and see if they have any warranty on the tap.

[Fred Kleinberg]

Imation says that the tapes are good for about 70 backups and then they are worn-out. I have packed up 20 and sent them to Imation today - if there are mfr defects found - they will replace them. More after I hear from them.