Program to Turn Tape Drive Into Hard Drive

[CHANGE USERNAME TO westes]

I need a program that will map a tape drive as a hard drive. I need to
write and erase certain patterns to the tape repeatedly for proper erasure.
I have a program that will do this for hard drives and want to be able to
re-use that software to erase tapes.

 

[Andrew Morton]

I need a program that will map a tape drive as a hard drive. I
need to write and erase certain patterns to the tape repeatedly for
proper erasure. I have a program that will do this for hard drives
and want to be able to re-use that software to erase tapes.

How about the conventionial method, e.g.
http://www.veritysystems.com/degaussersv90.htm

Or for a fun^Whome-built one, something like the offerings from
http://www.amazingmagnets.com/

Andrew

 

[CHANGE USERNAME TO westes]

You cannot degauss 9840 media because of servo track information.

 

[Bob I]

I'm somewhat confused as to why "servo track information" prevents use
degaussing as a "secure data destruction method prior to disposal".
(which would be the only reason to multi pass random pattern writes as
the OP requested)

 

[Andrew Morton]

You cannot degauss 9840 media because of servo track information.

It would have been helpful to have known that in the first place. For
that type of tape, the tape drive manufacturer provides a utility for
securely erasing the tape data, or at least they should.

Andrew

 

[CHANGE USERNAME TO westes]

We want to resell the tapes to a different company. That means erase the
data, but don't erase the servo tracks.

 

[CHANGE USERNAME TO westes]

We have our own algorithms for erasing magnetic media. I just need an
efficient way to get them onto tape. The program that writes the patterns
was designed to write them to disk, hence the reason I want to make the tape
look like a disk.

There were programs that did exactly this on PCs under DOS in the late 80s.
Surely someone out there has such a thing?