Wiping out data from old backup tapes

When I worked in college radio, we had an electro magnetic tape wiper for our audio tapes.

It was a one foot square box with a circular magnet inside - the idea being you didn't want to have the electrical field going only one way.

We turned it on, waved the tape over it for about 30 seconds in a circular motion, and voila - usually wiped pretty good.

On occasion someone wouldn't do it long enough and we would have bleed through on something we recorded.

But they work relatively well. You could probably make one if you can find one(bulk tape eraser I think they were called).

James

They have a tape demagnetizer that should fit the bill. Runs about $40.00.

first, tape drives are old as the hills. upgrade (do not buy new) your computer to a hard drive. this is after backing up your files. since you are probably using 1.44 floppys buy a nice little 200mb zip or a 2 gig jaz. they work just fine for backup. then throw your tape drive out the window. it's old and outmoded.

yes you can use a magnet, but needsto be a rather strong one, however if you were planning on using the tapes again then i wouldn't do it. I would just ran an erase on the tape.
I'm currently doing this at the moment and the thing is, when ever i walk past the machine i'm doing it on it's a case of putting the next tape in and starting the erase... not a big deal...

Bulk Erasing and tapes. Are you going to reuse them?

If not, don't waste the money on a bulk eraser, just get a Phillips screwdriver and a pair of scissors, extract the tape reels and cut through to the center of the reel.

If these are the 350MB or less QIC mini-cartridges, keep in mind that bulk erasing them will get rid of the data, but you will have to reformat them to use them, so you will be spending 1-2 hours per tape doing this to reuse them. It will probably be quicker to use theerase routine.

If these are the 575 or less QIC full-size cartridges for use in streaming drives, go ahead and bulk erase them and reuse them.

If you are using the newer Travan technology tapes, they are formatted from the factory. Bulk erasing them destroys the format and renders them unusable, once again, don't waste your money, just disassemble and cut them up.

Also, tapes do not make very good long-term data storage. If you have stuff you want to keep around more than a year, burn it to CD or use Jazz Drives.