On 2017-03-17 09:13, Per Jessen wrote:
Carlos E. R. wrote:
A cleaning tape maybe? I reserve the alcohol and cotton buds for the really bad cases.
I have little experience with these digital tapes, but with the analog audio tapes I've never used cleaning tape, but instead had a go at cleaning the heads directly with a cotton rod impregnated in spirit. Alcohol.
I think the cleaning tapes are slightly abrasive.
FYI, cleaning cartridges are always used in tape libraries. Every so many operations, the cleaning cartridge goes in, it's standard. Libraries typically have dedicated slots for them. Some drives will ask for the cleaning cartridge themselves - by sending an alert or by displaying e.g. a "C" on the display.
I don't know what they're made of, but it's not sandpaper :-)
Some audio tapes had the leader tape made of cleaning tape. It was just tape that was not smooth, had some rugosity, and made of different material. But I simply cleaned the heads, which were easy enough to reach, with one of those bathroom cotton roads impregnated with surgical spirit. Dissolves the dirt easily. Anyway, the OP mentioned using cleaning tape (twice?), no result. -- Cheers / Saludos, Carlos E. R. (from 42.2 x86_64 "Malachite" (Minas Tirith))