Pre-formatted tapes for HP drives

[Bill Gaines]

In article <274 at istsists.ca> mathieu at ists.yorku.ca (Pierre Mathieu) writes:
>
>	Here are a couple of questions about HP tape drives.
>We have an HP 9000 series 350 system running HP-UX 6.2
>with an HP 9144A tape drive.
>
>Question 1) Is it possible to load tapes into this drive that
>	    are not pre-formatted and format them from HP-UX?
>	    I have tried to use (non-HP) unformatted tapes
>	    in this drive but it just went into spasms and locked
>	    up totally refusing to use these tapes (which are
>	    in every way identical to HP's except that they are not
>	    pre-formatted). 
>

Yes it is.  We  never  buy the  tapes  from HP.  We buy 3M  DC615HC  and
DC600HC tapes and certify them  ourselves.  I haven't  tried it on a 300
series, but our 800 series has a program  called  "mediainit"  that will
certify  these  tapes  that  have  not  been  certified.  Buy  doing  it
ourselves,  it saves  us about  $15 per tape we buy.  If you  don't  run
mediainit on these tapes, you will not be able to use them.  We buy ours
from a place called  COMTEL.  I don't have their phone number or address
handy.

By the way, if you have an HP 1000, you can use the  "formc"  program to
certify them on it.



-- 
Bill Gaines
Industrial Computer Corporation
(...!gatech!iccdev!bill)