[Sunhelp] Tape drive problems. somewhat off topic

[David Lefebvre]

I've had the same problem on a couple of HP Dat drives in the last few
weeks, both DAT24e's. My understanding is that the flashing of the cleaning
light can indicate a fault condition rather than a need for cleaning. Have a
look at www.hp.com - under the Support section you will find a list of
things to test, but in both my cases I called HP and was told to run
Tapetools, which differentiates between drive and tape problems. The drives
failed on the read-write test, and were then both swapped out FOC by HP. One
was about 2 months old, one about 18 months old. This was in the UK but I
assume the same applies in the USA.

David



-----Original Message-----
From: sunhelp-admin at sunhelp.org [mailto:sunhelp-admin at sunhelp.org]On
Behalf Of Dale Ghent
Sent: 23 October 2000 22:44
To: sunhelp at sunhelp.org
Cc: SunHelp
Subject: Re: [Sunhelp] Tape drive problems. somewhat off topic


On Mon, 23 Oct 2000, Jonathan Eisch wrote:

| Hi All,
|
| I've been using my HP DDS-2 drive (C1533C) to back up my Sun box for the
| last few months, to back up my sun systems, but all of a sudden, it has
| problems writing and reading my tapes, and it complains about needing
| cleaning after only a very short while.  I've used the cleaning
| Cartridge several times, but no change.  When I hooked it up the my NT
| with HP tape tools, and I ran it through the diagnostics, and it gets
| errors writing to the tape, and says that I probably have a problem with
| my drive.  Any hints on how to 'really' clean it out (even if it may be
| in a somewhat unorthodox manner)?

A screwdriver (the hardware kind, not the drink), isopropyl alcohol, and
some cotton swabs. Take the unit apart, clean the tape heads, and take
care not to get alcohol on any rubber parts (wheels, etc) in the unit.

It might be a good idea to take a can of compressed air and blow the dust
out, too. Before you clean the tape heads, of course.

/dale

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