A3000 fixed but i screwed up - tape drive needed

[vanderroll]

Hi

Over the past 12 months ive been trying to get my A3000 running again and i can finally say its now working as well (or better) as it ever has, i made a list and bought the following items: 1gig scsi hd - physical 3.1 roms - 16meg zip ram - cheap lcd monitor and also replaced the battery.

Everything seemed to work fine and i started copying everything onto the new hd, but little did i know i had a faulty scsi ribbon and everything i'd copied over approximatley 30kb was being written with errors! After much copying and formatting i had virtually lost everything and i was still unaware about the faulty ribbon cable.

At this point i was getting desperate, one of the hd's - an old 150mb 5 1/4" Conner had stopped spinning-up and i was down to my emergency floppy of HDToolbox and QBack/Tools. Luckily i had QIC tape backups of everything i had lost (done in 2002) and i set about restoring my boot drive. My tape drive (Archive 2150s) started to re-tension/rewind the first tape as normal but this seemed to go on for longer than i remembered so i ejected the tape.....HOLY CRAP!!!! virtualy all the tape had been pulled out of the tape case and tied itself in knots around the drive chassis and mechanism! As you can imagine i was a bit p!$$ed off about this so i pulled the tape drive and the 5 1/4" hd and skipped them thinking they were dead, after all it was mid 1980's hardware.

When i went back to the Amiga a couple of months later i found none of the remaining drives (2 x Fujitsu hd's + cdrom) would work and after a bit of swapping around i found just one (the 1st) of the six connectors would read & write to a drive reliably. I have now fitted a new (not so easy to find) scsi ribbon and all my tests seem to suggest i have solved that particular problem but i guess i will never know if the tape drive and hd i skipped were actually fully functional.

The tape i lost contained all my installed software: Final Writer - CED pro - MUI - Tim Martin's SID (i didn't like Dopus) PPaint - QBack - Diavolo - Cando - Audition 4 - Mod Trackers - TurboPrint and so on....... its not the end of the world i know but the Amiga feels a little dumb without it. I still have QIC backups of my original os3.1 (a lot faster than current standard install) and 10 years worth of work on my own audio files and Mods ect. I will be asking the Amiga.org members for assistance in many matters in the future but my priority is how to get my remaining backups off the QIC tapes and on to my hard drive, i had a good UK source for old hardware on EBay (hjcomponentsales) but he's recently moved over to chips only.

So my question is.... does anyone have an old "Archive 2150s" QIC tape drive (preferably half-height) for sale in UK or know a trusted UK based hardware recycler that could sell me one thats a bit cheaper than current Ebay USA prices, i would probably have more options if i could be sure that other manufacturers tape drives could read the Archive 2150 format, but thats the only tape drive ive ever used.

Thanks

[nicholas]

I have a SCSI tape drive knocking around somewhere but I'm not sure what type it is.

I'll have a hunt for it later tonight and get back to you.

[AltRN8]

I really hope you are able to find one. Locating cheap or even moderately priced backup hardware is really hard. I've been trying to locate a AMIX compatible tape drive for ages with no luck. Add on top of that their chances of failing or ruining tapes because of age and it makes for expensive and aggravating quest. Sadly the logic makes sense for the profit minded. The primary reason someone wants access to one is that they are desperately looking to recover files.

I hope you have better luck than I have had and I'll keep and eye out for a Archive 2150 when I'm searching for the model I need.

Good luck.

[Ral-Clan]

I had never heard of the Archive 2150 before so I looked it up:

http://www.nessales.com/ebay/11737/Archive%202150S%20SCSI%20Tape%20Drive%20150250MB%20LR56637%20Half%20%281%29.JPG

There is a big drive belt visible in the picture above.  My guess is that, if this has been sitting around for years, it has become stiff / cracked / stretched / broken.

I would check that immediately and replace it if possible (you can buy different length drive belts online).  It might be possible to ressurect your drive.

If the drive belt is still intact and the belt has merely become stiff or shiny (won't grip metal capstans), you might be able to temporarily get some more use out of it by treating it with a plastic/rubber restoration product (like something that is used to tread automotive tires - usually found where car cleaning products are sold).  That might work.  Before that, I would try to rub the belt lightly with very fine grit sandpaper or steel wool, i.e. 400 - 1200 grit - (then clean the belt to remove any grit before re-installing).

[vanderroll]

I have a SCSI tape drive knocking around somewhere but I'm not sure what type it is.

I'll have a hunt for it later tonight and get back to you.

Good luck with the search.....many thanks

I really hope you are able to find one. Locating cheap or even moderately priced backup hardware is really hard. I've been trying to locate a AMIX compatible tape drive for ages with no luck.

I hope you have better luck than I have had and I'll keep and eye out for a Archive 2150 when I'm searching for the model I need.

Likewise, have you a part/model number for your drive?

I had never heard of the Archive 2150 before so I looked it up:

http://www.nessales.com/ebay/11737/Archive%202150S%20SCSI%20Tape%20Drive%20150250MB%20LR56637%20Half%20%281%29.JPG

 I would check that immediately and replace it if possible (you can buy different length drive belts online).  It might be possible to ressurect your drive.

Thats the one but like i said - i threw it out after it chewed the tape! It was a dumb thing to do because it was probably okay, i only found out about broken scsi ribbon (gone brittle) later!

[nicholas]

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find the SCSI tape drive I had. Looks like I thew it out in our recent house move.