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From: luner@werewolf.CS.WISC.EDU (David L. Luner)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt
Subject: Re: 6157-002 tape drive
Message-ID: <9126@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 13 Nov 89 16:33:10 GMT
References: <9261@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu> <213600005@s.cs.uiuc.edu>
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu
Reply-To: luner@werewolf.CS.WISC.EDU (David L. Luner)
Organization: IBM Madison
Lines: 43

In article <213600005@s.cs.uiuc.edu> silver@s.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
>May you never have to use any of the backups you make.

I'm posting the following ancedote for amusement value, not as a plug
for either IBM or 3M. The story is true and was related to me by the individual
involved.

In the path of the hurricane Hugo that swept through North Carolina this year
was an RT in a first floor office. Well, needless to say, things were a mess.
There were "high water" marks 7 feet up the wall. The RT, alas, was history.
No problem, they figure because

	(1) They had RT systems ready to ship from the "home office"

Fine. Within 24 hours, a new system has arrived.

	(2) They had backup tapes stored off-site

Wrong. The backup takes stored off-site were 
	
	(1) 8 months old and ...
	(2) blank.

So Jim went down to see what he could do. In a supply cabinet he found the
on-site backup tapes. Standard 3M cartridges, in the plastic containers
completely caked with sludge. At this point, clearly with nothing to loose,
Jim takes a tape back to his hotel room, opens up the cartridge and spends 
the night running warm water (or what passed for water) over the tape.
Note: the tape was not unwound as a tightly wound tape is fairly waterproof
on the inside. After carefully drying the tape and putting the cartridge 
back together he brings the tape in the next day and, lo, it is readable.

Note: The remaining tapes were successfully recovered by a less colourful
process. 3M has a service (I don't know about charges) for cleaning tapes
that have need accidently maimed.

The net result is that the site was up an running as of their last backup.

	-- David


PS. Please take backups, verify them and store them off-site. Don't
    call me for hurricanes.