Tape Backup Chewing UP Tapes...Please Help!
Yau Felix Chung
Hello. Has anyone had problems with the Colorado Jumbo 250 chewing
and breaking up the tapes? For some reason mine has decided to
just break the tapes (2 of them). The unit is clean and I did not
have any problems prior to this.
Can the tapes themselves be "fixed"? I notice that the drive broke
the tapes at the beginning so even if I lose the data, I can reformat
and use the tapes again.
I also noticed that the backup unit tries to read (write?) when there is
not tape there. This is intermittent.
Any help welcome.
Thanks in advance.
Mike Schetterer
>Hello. Has anyone had problems with the Colorado Jumbo 250 chewing
>and breaking up the tapes? For some reason mine has decided to
>just break the tapes (2 of them). The unit is clean and I did not
>have any problems prior to this.
>Can the tapes themselves be "fixed"? I notice that the drive broke
>the tapes at the beginning so even if I lose the data, I can reformat
>and use the tapes again.
You may have a problem with the EOT (end of tape) sensor. If this device is
malfunctioning, the tape will run right off the spool when the tape rewinds.
You might also try just cleaning everything up real well.
It is quite difficult to repair the tapes once they are broken.
Mike
Jeff Van Dalen
I have a Jumbo Trakker 120 (external) and had similar problems. When I
spent 1/2 hr on the phone to Colorado (big $$$), they finally got to me
and explained the problem. I had been using a power bar (cheap one) that
was not "delivering" a constant voltage. This was playing havoc with the
drive. I was getting errors like no tape present, no drive present, and
some others not listed in the book. As well, the drive would not read the
EOT marker and unspool the tape. Colorado Systems sent me a fax on how to
re-spool the tape, which is quite easy to do. Furthermore, I now plug the
tape unit directly into the wall.
I have not had any problems since.
Jeff
--
Jeff Van Dalen McMaster Association of Part-time Students (MAPS)
E:mail: vand...@mcmaster.ca Kenneth Taylor Hall, Room 102
Voice: (905) 525-9140 x22021 McMaster University
Fax: (905) 524-1111 Hamilton, ON L8S 4M4
Leigh Smith
destroyed by a Jumbo 250. The drive is sh*t. I'm moving to DAT (as my wallet
screams). I did open one of the tapes up in an attempt to fix them and the
funny thing is, I don't think the drive broke the tape off the spindle as there
is no seam where the tape was originally mounted. It looks like the tape is
simply wound onto the spindle and kept tensioned by the drive. In my case I
placed the tape in the drive, attempted a directory, the tape started up, the
speed seem to slow, a slight rustling sound was heard and the software reported
a problem with the tape (as I recall) and the tape stopped. I tried another
cart, not realising the tape had been broken, got the same behaviour, looked at
the cart and realised I'd destroyed two tapes....sh*t.
I made a couple of tries at rewinding the tape onto the spindle but can't seem
to get the tension enough to really wrap it on. I fear the tapes have had it
and I'm not prepared to destroy any more tapes trying the drive out. My
solution is to chuck it, spend lots more money and warn everyone that Colorado
tape drives are a complete waste of time and money and pose real threats to
your data. The software is rubbish (but I lived with it), it's non-standard
(making support by non-DOS os's like Solaris or NeXTStep problematic), it's
slow, it's falsely advertised (it's 125Mb with poor data compression which
slows to a crawl and expands compressed files), it only has a 1 year warranty
(mine died after 18 months, with my retailer completely unhelpful) and to top
it off, it destroys tapes. I happened by good grace to have destroyed tapes of
my hard disk backups' meaning I haven't lost data, although I had other tapes
which had off-line data which would have really lost a lot of time and effort
if I'd lost them. Don't touch them.
--
Leigh Smith NeXTMail: le...@thylacine.cs.uwa.edu.au
Computer Science Dept Phone: +61-9-380-1945,Fax:+61-9-380-1089
University of Home NeXTMail:le...@psychokiller.dialix.oz.au
Western Australia Home Phone: +61-9-382-3071
*--=----=----=----=----=----=---====---=----=----=----=----=----=----=--*
David M Fanger
>This wont help much but I recently had exactly the same problem, two
tape >destroyed by a Jumbo 250. The drive is sh*t.
Perhaps, though mine has been working reliably for three years after
the experience described below.
>funny thing is, I don't think the drive broke the tape off the
>spindle as there is no seam where the tape was originally mounted. It
>looks like the tape is simply wound onto the spindle and kept tensioned
>by the drive.
Correct.
>In my case I placed the tape in the drive, attempted a directory, the tape
>started up, the speed seem to slow, a slight rustling sound was heard and
>the software reported a problem with the tape (as I recall) and the tape
>stopped. I tried another cart, not realising the tape had been broken, got
>the same behaviour, looked at the cart and realised I'd destroyed two
>tapes....sh*t.
The tapes weren't destroyed, merely wound off the spool. They can be respooled
with a little patience.
I had a similar experience with my Colorado tape drive unspooling tapes
two and a half years ago, when the drive was six months old. After some
exploration (just as I was about to pull the unit out of the case and
return it to the vendor), I peered into the tape slot with a flashlight
and discovered a large dust bunny sitting precisely in the path of the
optical sensor that reads end-of-tape holes. Since the dust was preventing
the end-of-tape from being seen, the drive just kept going until all the
tape was wound off the hub. I removed the dust bunny, respooled the tapes
that had been abused, and the drive has worked flawlessly ever since (now
in a new machine).
Seems to me this is a design flaw in the drive. Most PCs suck air into
the case, and the Colorado drives seem to duct the air that moves through
them right over the EOT sensor. Since my frustrating experience 2 1/2
years ago I have kept a piece of polyurethane foam, cut to the size of a
tape cartridge, jammed in the drive to inhibit and filter any air that
passes through. Seems to work fine.
--
__________
Dave Fanger (dfa...@world.std.com)