Hello,
I really dont think HP makes any tapes, check the fine print and lables, 
it's probably, Imations or Fuji.
By the way do you not store media in climate controlled room, for Ratinder 
who had problem with Rain ( know how that is, my wife if from Bombay)
It is quite expensive to recycle tape  that early especially when they 
first came out, I am using 2-3 year old media, SONY, FUJI etc no problems 
for the most part.
LTO keeps track of mount count, you can find out how many times the tape 
has been mounted by using mminfo -m switch.
HTH

To sign off this list, send email to listserv AT listserv.temple DOT edu and 
type "signoff networker" in the
body of the email. Please write to networker-request AT listserv.temple DOT edu 
if you have any problems
wit this list. You can access the archives at 
http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/networker.html or
via RSS at http://listserv.temple.edu/cgi-bin/wa?RSS&L=NETWORKER