12-11-2017 11:35 AM
I am a little confused. I've got a LTO - 6 drive and a stack of LTO - 6 tapes. My drive reads all the LTO - 6 tapes but 3. These three were bought before I bought the LTO - 6 drive (I tried to read them in an LTO - 4 drive) before I realized the limitations of that drive.
Would have trying to use them in the old drive damaged the tapes? The keep reading as incompatible media, but the are identical to my other LTO - 6 tapes (same brand and model, just purchased from a different vendor). I am trying to avoid throwing away $90 worth of tapes.
Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
12-11-2017 02:22 PM
Have you tried running an erase job? and a long-erase job (will take 12 hours or so)?
What brand of tape drive? You might be able to use the tpae drive vendor diagnostics tool to see if you can rescue these 3 cartridges.
Using LTO6 media in an LTO4 drive is not supported and I doubt that many here on VOX have tried it. I would hope that it doesn't damage the tapes. Ideally, the LTO4 drive should have just ejected the incompatible media immediately.
12-12-2017 05:10 AM
I did try an erase job, not a long erase job and it failed saying the same thing, incompatible media in the slot.
It is an HP tapeloader and drive with HP tapes. I'll take a look at their site and see what tools they offer.
Thanks!
12-13-2017 12:31 AM
Assuming barcodes are on the tapes - did you stick different format barcodes (from the LTO-6 tapes) on them when you tried to use them in LTO4 - I believe some libraries will refuse to use a tape (and report incomptible) if the barcode is the wrong standard.