More tape tales

There is definitely something about tapes, they just seem to attract trouble!

We’ve talked in the past about tapes that have been inserted upside down and back-to-front, tapes that have had barcodes maliciously swapped and tapes that have come back from the vault with grass all over them.  But this one is a new one for me…..

Basically, I was recently involved in a Commvault implementation when we came across a tape that we thought was faulty.  The library had tried several times to mount the tape with no luck.  So we had it removed from library and shipped to site so that we could package it up and return to the supplier as DOA.

However, this is what we saw when it came back to us –

Seriously! It had been put into the library with the instruction sheet explaining where to put the barcode label stuck to it!

Notice the circular markings in the middle of the paper that were made by the reel motor as it repeatedly tried to engage the reel drum.  Makes me wonder if we had tried to mount the tape enough times if the reel motor would eventually have worn a hole through the paper and mounted and used the tape with the paper still attached??  Guess I’ll never know!

The thing is, this was done by somebody I have a fair bit of respect for! 

Inserting tapes upside downand the likes is usually down to stupidity or not knowing what your doing.  This on the other hand could have been done by any of us.  Like I said, this was a new installation and involved loading a lot of new tapes into a new library – quite a monotonous task – and Im sure had it been me loading the tapes I may well have missed it.  Well......... ;-)

A case for VTL??