Storage Technology Corporation

Kurt William Pyatt

Charles Allen Milligan

Michael Lawrence Leonhardt

John C Owens

William C Dodt

Matthew P Wojciechowski

Jerry L Donze

Hari S Narahari

A characteristic of helical scan tracks is that a distortion that occurs in the written data tracks is not uniform over the entire length of the track. Therefore, segments of the helical scan track can be read even though the entirety of the helical scan track cannot be read in a single pass. Therefore, laterally moving the read heads a predetermined distance in a selected direction to access a section of the helical track can produce full amplitude read signals and thereby that section of helical scan track can be read. Once a section of the helical scan track is read, the read heads are moved another incremental distance to access a next section of the distorted helical scan track. Each section of the track is thereby read on a different helical scan as the read heads are incrementally repositioned on each scan. The read sections of the helical scan track are stored in the memory of the tape drive control unit and then used to reconstruct the entirety of the track. This enables the tape drive system to recover the entirety of the distorted helical scan track and data is not lost.

System for reading data from a distorted magnetic tape media

This magnetic tape cartridge has the same exterior dimensions as a conventional 3480-type magnetic tape cartridge but houses different media. To clearly identify the media contained in the cartridge, a label receiving recess in included on the back of the cartridge. A human readable and machine readable label can be inserted into this recess to identify the media contained in this cartridge. Additional label recesses are provided juxtaposed to the media identification recess and on the top and side of the cartridge to receive user installed labels to uniquely identify the cartridge.

Magnetic tape cartridge having media identification

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Longmont, CO, United States of America

Kurt William Pyatt