[rescue] HP DDS-3 DAT question

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

I was given two HP C1537A DDS-3 DAT drives. They came with 4 boxes of
Sony blank tapes. The tapes are at least 2 years old, but never opened.

I tried to backup up my system with them and got the "clean me" 
blinking lights with the following message:

	st0: Error with sense data: Info fld=0x0, Current st09:00: 
		sense key Medium Error

I don't have any cleaning tapes, so I opened the drives and cleaned the
heads and capstans with head cleaner. A relatively large amount of black
"dirt" came off of each. 

I don't have the option of buying a new drive. My options are to buy new
tapes or go back to backups on CD's.

I understand that the drives are relatively unreliable compared to an
DLT or it's children. Are they worth using at all? If so, any
recemendations for blanks?

If they really are that bad, can they be used for anything? Recycled
as audio drives?

Thanks in advance,

Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson gsm at mendelson.com 972-54-608-069
Icq/AIM Uin: 2661079 MSN IM: geoffrey_mendelson at hotmail.com (Not for email)