Re: Disposing old tapes

On Mon, 2015-08-03 at 07:43 -0400, rob@xxxxxxxxx wrote:

I have found tape to be a pretty tough item. I fired into a reel of tape,
edgewise, and didn't get much penetration. Two variables to consider:
One, I wasn't shooting a .50cal BMG. Two, I failed to secure the reel
from scooting back, which helped to disperse some of the energy. But
maybe it's better to disperse it that way than to risk a ricochet.

One thing with the tape you have to consider is that when wrapped around
a spool it becomes , in effect, a solid mass of plastic.

A good example of flimsy material under compression becoming more like
the original (wood in this case) solid mass is below:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3075622/But-walk-Lake-District-bridge-no-glue-bolts-fixings-22-000-sheets-PAPER.html

On that diskette analogy... Magnets were used, and the files were
corrupted. BUT the files were still there and I'm guessing that many of
the sectors were recoverable.

1-Reinitialize the tapes with CLEAR(*YES), if you still have the hardware
to do so.
2-Use your magnets
3-Consider chemical destruction. Test strips of tapes into various
chemicals and see how it reacts. Be real nice if the liquid later turns
out to be combustible.
4-Burn the media. However, if the quantity of media is enough that the
local FD will arrive and threaten to fine you for burning tires (been
there, done that on a real tire burn) then you may want to rethink this.

Here, we mostly use CLEAR(*YES) and sell them to the used tape market.
Actually the most enviornmentally friendly solution.

Assuming that the clear actually does a full length tape erase then I
would have thought in 99% of cases that would be "good enough".

To be able to read an erased tape would probably require specialist
equipment that would amplify everything so even traces of "nearly
erased" data could be picked up, then you would need to convert that
signal into digital. The problem would be that if you were picking up
trace signals from an erased tape you might also pick up previously
erased signals during a normal erase while writing cycle. You might be
able to pick signals at the edge of a tape if the erase head was
slightly offset from the write head. But to be honest unless you had big
money and plenty of time it would be very difficult to get data back
from an erased tape. Personally I would write out a constant stream of
random data over the whole tape, then perform the erase.

Things get even less likely to be recovered with newer higher density
tapes as the tolerances are stunningly small and the density per inch
huge.

All that said, I do miss the visual niceties of big old reel to reel
systems.

The firearm experiement was on really old tapes with no resale value and
no hardware to CLEAR(*YES).

Rob Berendt
--
IBM Certified System Administrator - IBM i 6.1
Group Dekko
Dept 1600
Mail to: 2505 Dekko Drive
Garrett, IN 46738
Ship to: Dock 108
6928N 400E
Kendallville, IN 46755
http://www.dekko.com





From: "Jim Oberholtzer" <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'Midrange Systems Technical Discussion'"
<midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: 07/31/2015 07:04 PM
Subject: RE: Disposing old tapes
Sent by: "MIDRANGE-L" <midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx>



Degaussing the tape will completely destroy it. (magnets).

Then again if your that near a farm, how about a small fire?

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects


-----Original Message-----
From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
PaultinNZ
Sent: Friday, July 31, 2015 3:38 PM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
Subject: Re: Disposing old tapes

Love to see the replies to this.

On 1 August 2015 at 08:30, Nathan Andelin <nandelin@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

I removed the reels from the cartridges, placed the plastic and mental
remains in the recycle bin, then used a knife to cut through tape.

Would passing the tape between a couple of strong cow magnets be just
as effective as shredding the tape?
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