I'll second Greg's suggestions. Magnetic tape is fairly durable kept away from external magnetic fields and excessive heat and moisture. The base plastic is damaged by extreme cold and organic fumes.<br><br>For most tapes, a simple read/write cycle is all they need periodically. That requires either two drives (ideal) or a read then write cycle. The big magnetic domains of older media have more magnetic material holding the data but the drive heads were not as precise as the new ones.<br>
<br>If you find working tape drives, keep a known-good working spare sealed in a static-proof bag with the moisture absorber packet. Lock the package in a fire safe at normal room temp. <br><br>Ask NASA about extracting data from old tapes that no longer have working drives and the engineers who designed them are dead.<br>
<br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Greg Freemyer <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:greg.freemyer@gmail.com">greg.freemyer@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding-left: 1ex;">
<div class="im">On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 10:15 AM, Chris Fowler<br>
<<a href="mailto:cfowler@outpostsentinel.com">cfowler@outpostsentinel.com</a>> wrote:<br>
> On Mon, 2010-10-04 at 09:58 -0400, Jim Kinney wrote:<br>
>> 90+% or archival needs are environmental. magnetic media, optical<br>
>> media, film, all require lightless, temperature and humidity<br>
>> conditions to be met for maximum lifespan.<br>
><br>
> Crap, are you tell me those quarter-inch carts I have in the attic that<br>
> have been there for over 12yrs are worthless?<br>
<br>
</div>I was once hired to attempt a recovery from various tape / floppy /<br>
etc. media stored in a basement for almost 10 years. We had little or<br>
no luck as I recall, but what little luck we did have was with<br>
quarter-inch carts!<br>
<br>
So if you're serious, I would pull em down and make new copies asap.<br>
<br>
Unless you have huge bucks to spend, the best you can realistically do<br>
is get half a dozen tape drives from ebay and try the tapes on them<br>
one at a time. One of the largest tape recovery companies in the<br>
country is here in Piedmont Center (emag). Even they don't do much<br>
more than that. (I had assumed they would try to adjust the tracking<br>
etc. of their drives to get them to align with mis-aligned media, but<br>
in general they don't do that.)<br>
<font color="#888888"><br>
Greg<br>
</font><div><div></div><div class="h5"><br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Ale mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Ale@ale.org">Ale@ale.org</a><br>
<a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo/ale</a><br>
See JOBS, ANNOUNCE and SCHOOLS lists at<br>
<a href="http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo" target="_blank">http://mail.ale.org/mailman/listinfo</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>-- <br>James P. Kinney III<br>I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.<br><br><br>