Thanks both James and Tim Further testing suggests it's the alignment of the record head on the SAS drive that's the issue as the SCSI drive can read and write its own stuff as well as reading stuff written on a 3rd drive - but not tapes written on the SAS drive. The SAS drive can read anything including its own tapes - but remains the only drive that can read its own tapes.
Annoying as a) I've written 13 tapes already with the SAS drive and b) the SCSI drive is very much slower. Looks like I'll need to buy a replacement SAS drive. Ah well. Cheers R -----Original Message----- From: Hampshire <hampshire-boun...@mailman.lug.org.uk> On Behalf Of James Dutton via Hampshire Sent: 04 October 2024 19:21 To: Hampshire LUG Discussion List <hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk> Cc: James Dutton <james.dut...@gmail.com> Subject: Re: [Hampshire] Tape drives - one can't read from t'other! On Fri, 4 Oct 2024 at 17:01, Tim via Hampshire <hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk> wrote: > > One of the common issue I had back when doing tape backup was head alignment, it only had to be a fraction out and then you had the situation you have now. I know some drive did have a slight bit of alignment option but not knowing it it up or down left or right it would be a bit of trial and error (even slackening the securing screws and retightening the screw might be enough. The other point to check is how clean is the head, it might need a clean. > I would suspect the tape head alignment also. Back in the day, we just got the tape backup devices serviced / calibrated / aligned at regular intervals. I don't know what the service engineer did but it kept them working well. It was a good choice you made, to get two devices, otherwise you would never have found out that you had a problem. Keep in mind that tape media deteriorates over time, so make new duplicates over time. Kind Regards James -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Manage subscription: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG website: http://www.hantslug.org.uk -------------------------------------------------------------- -- Please post to: Hampshire@mailman.lug.org.uk Manage subscription: https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/hampshire LUG website: http://www.hantslug.org.uk --------------------------------------------------------------
