Man, these things are annoying. All of the bands are bad, and they leave residue on the spools. There are no EOT BOT holes on the HP tape, and the drive locks the cartridge until you 'unload' it, which spins to the EOT soft region. Well, guess what, they leave the tape in a position where the residue ends up near the last block on the track, so it will read track 1 (4mb), or maybe 1-3 (12mb), then fail when it hits the gunk.
You DON'T want to bake that gunk on! It is possible to remove it but DO NOT EVER USE ALCOHOL ON A QIC TAPE! It instantly takes off the binder. Water-based cleaner (like whiteboard cleaner) seems to work but it is extremely difficult to work with the tape and not damage it. My sympathies to anyone having to deal with recovery of this media.
