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

[Doug McLaren]

On Sat, Jan 19, 2008 at 06:41:48PM -0500, Curtis H. Wilbar Jr. wrote:

| DLT is bulk erasable.

Yes, but it requires a big honking magnetic field, one that your
standard bulk eraser cannot create.  And if it's not strong enough you
can't make up for it by doing it for a long time.

| "Real" (professional) degaussers rated for DLT cost thousands....
| (I could buy a lot of tapes for that price... new even....).

We had the same problem at one point, and we sent our tapes in to a
service to have them degaussed.  It cost about $2/tape plus shipping.
At the time tapes were $50 each, so it made sense.  Now they seem to
be around $13 each, so maybe not quite so much.

I can't find any reference to who we had do it, but googling for `dlt
degaussing service' finds some hits at similar prices.

-- 
Doug McLaren, dougmc at frenzied.us