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From: chem194@csc.canterbury.ac.nz (John Davis)
Newsgroups: comp.periphs.scsi,comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Info on SyQuest SQ555 wanted
Message-ID: <1991May24.130448.836@csc.canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 24 May 91 01:04:47 GMT
Organization: Chem Dept, U of Cant, ChCh NZ
Lines: 21

I'm having difficulties with a Syquest SQ555 drive (hooked to a macintosh)
in that I've got two cartridges that have 'gone bad' (on insertion
I get a repeating pattern of 5 blinks on the red led, followed by one on 
the green led). I'm presuming this means the factory defect list on 
the cartridges in question has become scrambled - I've tried formatting
the cartridges using the provided formatting software, but it
seems unable to initialise a cart with this sort of damage).
 
Presumably there is a separate scsi command (besides the usual format 
command) that you can send to force a total low-level format (like
they've got to format them at the factory somehow!?) - I'd be interested
if anyone knows what it is (or of some other way to try resurrecting
the dead carts - writing off $400 worth of media isn't appealing).
 
(the drive itself is fine - I'm using it with a fresh cartridge with
no problems) 

-----------------------------------------------------------
| o      John Davis - CHEM194@csc.canterbury.ac.nz       o |
| o    (Depart)mental Programmer,Chemistry Department    o |
| o  University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand o |