Jon Elson via cctalk wrote:
On 11/9/22 20:52, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
I have a few old exabyte tapes of possible historic value. Who can I pay to
get them recovered that has the best chance of success?
Very difficult. We were a big user of Exabyte drives for
processing of physics experimental data. Our experience is
Exabyte drives had a lifetime of 1-2 years, no matter if
they were powered on, in heavy use or just parked on a
shelf. Back in the day, we found outfits that would
refurbish and test the drives for a modest cost, but I
assume they are not doing that now.
I do have an 8200 drive here, but I have great doubts that
it would work.
I have an Exabyte drive too, actually two drives in the one case.
One of the drives has not worked at all while it has been in my care
(the door was pulled off by someone attempting to extract the tape
from it when it failed in service before I got it).
A few years back I dug it out and found the other drive didn't work
either. However, it was a fairly simple power supply fault and I
was able to revive it enough to read some old tapes successfully.
I'm not sure I'd trust it to try to read anything that might be of
historic value though.
Regards,
Peter Coghlan.
Jon
