Hurt by Slump, Archive Corp. Laying Off 200 : Manufacturing: The maker of computer storage equipment expects its quarterly loss to surpass $32 million. Layoffs are the latest of hundreds to hit the county’s high-tech industries.

Hurt by an unexpected downturn in the computer industry last month, Archive Corp. said Monday that it is laying off 200 people and expects to report a quarterly loss of more than $32 million.

The manufacturer of computer storage equipment said the layoffs will include 20 people at its Costa Mesa headquarters and 180 employees at its manufacturing plants in Singapore. Employees were notified Monday and will be given severance packages based on their years of service with the company, said Terri Douglas, a company spokeswoman.

The company, which laid off 58 people at its Ann Arbor, Mich., division last week, now has laid off more than 460 people since October. After the layoffs the company will employ about 2,800 people, Douglas said.

D. Howard Lewis, chief executive officer, said that the company began to see signs of improvement in industry sales last quarter but that the expected recovery didn’t materialize. “We now believe that computer sales generally will remain slow for the next two quarters,” he said.

Archive is one of several Orange County high-tech companies that have announced layoffs during the past several months. Hundreds of workers have been laid off at other companies, including Western Digital Corp., MAI Systems Inc. and Toshiba America Information Systems Inc., as a result of an computer industry slump. In Silicon Valley in Northern California, Apple Computer Inc. said last week that it was laying off 900 people.

Archive’s fortunes have worsened as major computer manufacturers--upon which Archive depends for much of its storage equipment sales--have experienced slumping sales, Douglas said. International Business Machines Corp., for example, said last week that it expects dramatically lower earnings for the second quarter.

Archive’s stock fell $1.125 a share, or 17%, to $5.50 in over-the-counter trading on Monday.

Archive said its loss for the three-month period that ends Friday will be mostly due to a write-down of $30 million to $35 million because of a revaluation of the assets of its Cipher Data Products subsidiary. Archive acquired the San Diego company for $141.7 million in 1990. Archive said the value of Cipher’s half-inch tape drive business has fallen because of the recession.

Lewis said the loss would put the company in violation of loan agreements with its primary lender, Barclays Bank. Archive is negotiating with the bank, he said, and expects to resolve the matter favorably.

The merger, which made Archive the biggest player in the market for tape drives used to back up data in computers to protect against accidental loss, has been complicated by the poor economy. The company has also been burdened by interest payments on debt related to the acquisition.

Michael Murphy, editor of the California Technology Stock Letter in San Francisco, said the expected loss is not surprising, given the company’s heavy debt load and dependence on the weakening computer industry.

“Even though the United States may be coming out of the recession, it isn’t happening in the personal computer industry,” Murphy said. “This write-off was clearly a possibility, though many people were hoping it wouldn’t be necessary.”

In addition, Douglas said the company will report a loss of about $2 million, after interest and taxes are paid. The loss is due to weak demand and a restructuring charge of $5 million to $10 million.

The company anticipates revenue of between $80 million and $85 million for the third quarter, down from $93.4 million a year earlier.

Archive expects to post a profit for the quarter ending Sept. 30.