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We have a Exabyte Mammoth-2 tape drive connected to a Solaris 10 box that's currently able to restore any Exabyte media no problem, but we have two other brands of 8mm tape that are shown as "illegal tapes" and ejected by the tape drive itself.

  • Maxell HS-8/112
  • 3M D8-112

From what I understand the Exabyte Mammoth-2 will only read AME format. However I can't find any information on what would support both the Maxell and 3M tapes (or even what format they are to begin with).

Any help on the matter is greatly appreciated.

grephappiness
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1 Answers1

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if you have just used an MP tape in the drive , the drive will reject the AME tape. You can reset this by putting a cleaning cartridge through.

Stupid idea , but there you are.

The drive reads MP tape as well as AME.

cheers

Charlie

J R Spigot
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  • Hi Charlie, thanks for your tip about the cleaning cartridges. Unfortunately we apparently don't have any available for use (this is part of another problem with all our older equipment, no upkeep). However I was able to secure another tape drive the EXB-8505 and it was able to read the required tape formats. So this is is my work around for now thankfully. – grephappiness Nov 25 '16 at 18:36
  • Well I have one Mammoth cleaning tape .. which is why I only want to save the Mammoth for AME tapes. EXB-8505 are quite plentiful , so that's what you need . I have several of these since the occasional Exabyte tape keeps turning up. – J R Spigot Nov 29 '16 at 15:42