Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!news.cs.indiana.edu!news.nd.edu!spool.mu.edu!samsung!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!indetech!daver!bungi.com!news From: garyj@neptun.pcs.com (Gary Jennejohn) Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k Subject: Tape drives Message-ID: Date: 9 Mar 91 04:13:07 GMT Sender: news@daver.bungi.com Lines: 23 Approved: news@daver.bungi.com > One thing we found out here at work is that if the drives are configured > (Wangtek) for 150meg like on our Sparcs, they will read 60 meg tapes but > they won't write on the 60meg tape cartridges!!! > > If our situation is unique, any help as to the solution would be appreciated. > Right now, we use 6150 model cartridges for backups. I can't see any > slot that makes them special either. Your situation is not unique, we have the same 'problem' here with our 150/350/500 MB tape drives. The higher capacity drives are able to accomodate themselves to reading the lower capacity tapes by shifting the heads (that's why the tape runs back and forth a few times when you stick a 60MB tape into a 150MB drive) but they can't hack writing to the old tapes because thay want to use all available write heads. The >= 150MB tapes are recognized by the drive because the holes at the start are in different locations. 150MB tapes are nice for backup but they cost a lot and are hard to come by (at least here in Germany). Gary