davidb@Pacer.UUCP (David Barts) (10/12/89)
I have been reading this newsgroup for several months now, and have come to the conclusion that ,many or most of its readers are not aware that non-HP tapes *WILL* work in HP tape drives. The HP model 9144A tape drive will work properly on 3M 150 foot (3M No. DC615HC) and 600 foot (No. DC600HC) cartridge tapes, provided that you high-level format (mediainit) them properly. Note the part numbers - most cartridge tape drives use DC600A cartridges which are *not* the same thing. The HC family contains the low-level formatting information that HP tape drives need. The A family does not. You must do a high-level format of a 3M cartridge before you use it. HP cartridges already have this high-level format, but 3M tapes DO NOT. This can be done with the mediainit(1M) command on HP-UX. Try: mediainit -vr /dev/rct/c0 (You may have to experiment a little with mediainit. I think this is what I did at my previous job; at my current position we are not buying any more cartridge tapes because we are moving to video cassette backup. This takes a while - about an hour for a 600' tape.) An initialized 3M tape is the same as an HP tape. The only difference is the price (3M tapes are $5 - $10 cheaper per cartridge). An `HP' tape is manufactured by 3M, low-level formatted by 3M, high-level formatted by HP, labeled by HP, and boxed by HP. If you don't think a label that says `HP' on it is worth $5 - $10 more than one that says `3M,' and you don't mind initializing and certifying your own tapes, try a DC600HC. They are available from most mail-order houses that sell magnetic media. I have successfully used DC600HC's on HP-UX 5.0 on a Series 500, an HP Pascal SRM system, an an HP-9000 Turbo SRX running HP-UX 6.5. Disclaimer: I have no relationship with 3M other than as a satisfied customer of their products. -- David Barts Pacer Corporation davidb@pacer.uucp ...!fluke!pacer!davidb