what causes a deck to eat a tape, or just pull the tape out of the casing. i have had my d8 pull the tape out slightly on 2 or 3 occasions, but i was able to retrieve the tape without any tears in it. this has happened when i was attempting to load it.
My guess is it's not one specific thing, but more than once it's happened to me because of three things:
1) the lid falling shut instead of me closing it as GENTLY as possible.
2) trying to hit any buttons (ffw, pause, record, whatever) before the LOAD/00:00:00/TOP/00:00:00 cycle is complete, i.e. once it's stopped making its loading noises.
3) the tape lid itself getting screwed up somehow, especially stuck open. I've retrieved a few 'eaten' tapes that still had the slider door open on the bottom. This is more a tape issue than a deck issue, of course.
But a good diagnostic check - at least for the D7/D8, and an off-board +T to the taper who originally mentioned it to me - is to turn on the back light while you're loading the tape. If there's any kind of misload, the power will cycle, the light will turn off, and you'll know there was a misload. This is especially helpful if you're not looking at your deck as it loads or if the music is too loud for you to hear your deck going through all the motions.
Hope this helps!
--Dave