User's Guide

Chapter 3 Installing External Tape Drives
Media Recognition System (DDS-4 Drives Only)
DDS-4/DAT 72 User’s Guide 40
Media Recognition System (DDS-4 Drives Only) 3
Using non-DDS media may appear to give satisfactory results, but the
inferior specifications of such media can cause data-integrity problems.
To avoid these problems, the external tape drive provides a media-
recognition system (MRS) feature that determines whether tape
cartridges conform to the DDS tape standard.
By default, MRS is enabled. With this setting, the drive:
• Reads from and writes to MRS media.
• Reads from but does not write to non-MRS media.
If you disable MRS, the drive reads from and writes to MRS and non-
MRS media.
Power-On Self-Test 3
By default, the external tape drive responds to SCSI commands only after
it successfully completes the Power-On Self-Test (about 5 seconds). If you
do not want the drive to perform this diagnostic when it powers-up,
disable the Power-On Self-Test.
Host Operating System 3
By default, the external tape drive is configured for a Microsoft Windows
98/Me/XP/NT/2000/2003 Server operating system.
Recording Drive Information
After you review and, if necessary, change the drive’s default settings,
record the information.