On 02/09/2020 11:11, Antonio Carlini wrote:
So I'm rather confused about what's happened. More importantly, I
don't know how to fix the drives I do have.
I thought I should follow up with further information, so as not to
pollute the archives with mis-information.
The one tape unit that I've never used does indeed have a missing leader.
As for the others, they had all snapped the tape (from the cartridge)
quite some way into the tape. So the leader was attached to the tape,
which then surrounded it on the rear spool. I missed that because I
didn't know what I was looking for. Once I realised what had happened I
gently started to unwind the rear spool enough that I could grab the
tape and then I basically pulled it all through (many metres of it)
until I reached the tape leader. The tape was discarded and the leader
reattached to the hook. That itself proved to be a bit fiddly the first
time I did it. I found that to get the drive to POST properly I had to
manually rotate the rear spool just enough to have the tape leader pull
back gently on the hook.
I also had a stuck tape. That required me to use the screw underneath
the centre of the inserted cartridge to rewind the tape back into the
cartridge. Once I'd rewound all of it the tape leader came into view. It
then detached from the tape. I don't remember if I had to do that
manually or not. Similarly I may have reattached it to the hook
manually. There's a lever to the side of the cartridge that you gently
move to allow the tape to be released by lifting the normal handle.
Antonio
--
Antonio Carlini
anto...@acarlini.com
