Pre-formatted tapes for HP drives

[Pierre Mathieu]

	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). 

Question 2) If it is not possible, then does anybody know if other
	    companies than HP make these pre-formatted tapes? We
	    found that at twice the price of the other tapes out
	    there, HP prices were a little excessive. :-) 

Thanks in advance for any help,


Pierre Mathieu                                 mathieu at ists.yorku.ca
Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science    mathieu at yunexus.yorku.ca
Center for Research in Exp. Space Science
York University, Ontario, Canada.