I have an HP 16-track tape drive, model 9144, that I'm trying to get working. The first thing I did was replace the capstan rubber wheel with an o-ring, as specified here:
http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=257
It seems to have no difficulties advancing or rewinding the tape now, but after it makes it through a long sequence of whirring (and I've tried three of my tapes so far) it comes back with a fault. Back panel display says 'F3', then if I press 'Display Results', it will cycle through the following:
U0, A3, A2, A1, 23, U2
Looking at the hardware reference, I can't tell whether that means U2 (the Controller) has a fault. It's displayed in the results, but has no fault code following it, so I'm assuming no?
The rest of them seem to mean there is a suspected fault in either the Read/Write circuitry, the Device Dependent Controller (dunno what that is?) or the Drive Mechanism, or any combination thereof. The failed test is Test 23, a read-write test where it tries to write a value to a 'test area' of the tape and read it back, and those errors are returned if the value it reads back is different than the value it wrote.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to start looking at in terms of fixing this issue? I'm sure I could work it out myself eventually (if it is fixable, that is) but it would be helpful to have advice from someone who has worked on these before, perhaps. One thing I did notice is that the head stepper potentially has issues, as in it was initially trying to move all the way to the bottom position and then keep going, emitting a grinding noise. It has actually stopped doing that at this point, though.
EDIT: Hmm, I do have a couple of write-protected software backups here. Since it won't do the read/write test on a write protected tape maybe I can at least see if it will read an existing tape this way.
http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=257
It seems to have no difficulties advancing or rewinding the tape now, but after it makes it through a long sequence of whirring (and I've tried three of my tapes so far) it comes back with a fault. Back panel display says 'F3', then if I press 'Display Results', it will cycle through the following:
U0, A3, A2, A1, 23, U2
Looking at the hardware reference, I can't tell whether that means U2 (the Controller) has a fault. It's displayed in the results, but has no fault code following it, so I'm assuming no?
The rest of them seem to mean there is a suspected fault in either the Read/Write circuitry, the Device Dependent Controller (dunno what that is?) or the Drive Mechanism, or any combination thereof. The failed test is Test 23, a read-write test where it tries to write a value to a 'test area' of the tape and read it back, and those errors are returned if the value it reads back is different than the value it wrote.
Does anyone have any suggestions on what to start looking at in terms of fixing this issue? I'm sure I could work it out myself eventually (if it is fixable, that is) but it would be helpful to have advice from someone who has worked on these before, perhaps. One thing I did notice is that the head stepper potentially has issues, as in it was initially trying to move all the way to the bottom position and then keep going, emitting a grinding noise. It has actually stopped doing that at this point, though.
EDIT: Hmm, I do have a couple of write-protected software backups here. Since it won't do the read/write test on a write protected tape maybe I can at least see if it will read an existing tape this way.
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