[rescue] bulk erasing DLT tapes (or, more specifically, NOT)

[Patrick Finnegan]

On Saturday 19 January 2008 19:30, Robert Darlington wrote:
> > On Jan 19, 2008 4:41 PM, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. 
<rescue at hawkmountain.net> wrote:
> > > Ethan O'Toole wrote:
> > > >> I don't see how a chipper-shredder would help Curtis reuse his
> > > >> media.
>
> I guess I missed the point here.  Why would anybody want to bulk
> erase tapes to reuse them?   Just overwrite or erase in the tape
> drive.  It takes a lot longer to do a format on a tape than it does
> to just erase them.

You don't format DLT media, any more than you format a 9-track.

For every DLT drive I've used, you have to degauss the media in order to 
write to it at a different capacity than it's already written at.

In this case, the OP said he's bulk-erasing DLT4 cartridges that were 
written in a 20GB (DLT4000) drive to reuse them in a 40GB drive, and 
actually get 40GB (uncompressed) on the tape.

Pat
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