Re: HP Tape drive for Christmas

 >    Failing that, if you have bootable Linux CD, it
should deal with the
 > drive just fine.

Apparently, modern Linux distros have depreciated the 'mt'
command. You have
to install the 'mt-st' package to get it. Eric Smith's
tapecopy program seems
to work ok, other than the known quirks like an endless
stream of -1 length
blocks if the tape stalls.