HP C5683A unable to clean! ejects all cleaning tapes including new.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

I'm helping you to find root cause of you problems. And that's all. Did you try cleaning drive off the SCSI bus? Do you have another DDS drive around to try your cleaning tapes with?
I did not say anything about drives replacement because we did not find root cause. As soon as we'll find it, we'll think further
Good luck
Eugeny

[Trevor Roddam]

Hello.

Sorry to cover old ground but I would like to ensure I have this right.

You have a DDS4 tape drive that refuses to clean its self with a variaty of cleaning tapes from differing manufactures, ages, etc including brand new ones just opened.
The SCSI Channels appear OK from the error log you've attached.

Is it only one of the drives is behaving this way or are both? I couldn't quite make it out.

Assuming one is behaving this way it might be that the loading mech within the drive is faulty.
Can you load data tapes or do they also eject after approx 10-15 Secs?
Are the tapes damages in any way?
Does the indicator light flash after the tapes are inserted and before they are ejected?

If both are behaving badly could you also send the report from the other drive.


Another point is that I have known these drives to throw wobblies.
Once I had to insert a cleaning tape over 5 times to reset something in the firmware. Silly but it worked.
It might be worth while removing it from this computer and attaching it to another, just to see. This should have no effect what so ever but I have seen stranger things, especially with MickySoft.
Can you load a tape without the computer connected?

These all sound stupid, but experience has show me otherwise.
I am looking into the error code shown in the log, I'll let you know what I find.

Trevor.

[Barrie_Evans]

Ken,

Could I ask you to re-generate the support ticket and attach it again, but this time, please save the ticket as a .ltt version (this way, I will get more information about the drive - the html summary leaves out a lot of drive info).

There may be something in the detailed support ticket that can help to further understand the problem that you are seeing.

One more thing, can you please clarify exactly how long it takes for the cleaning cartridge to be ejected (you mentioned 'several' seconds in your first post)?

cheers,
Barrie

[CA843380]

Hi,

I would echo Barries comments, an LTT ticket in ltt format would be helpful as it contains additional information.
If you could measure the time taken from inserting the cleaning tape to ejection of said tape that would be helpful as well. I measured the time this mroning on the drive on my desk and it took approx 35secs to perform a clean.
Something as simple as an expired cleaning cartridge could be the cause, however, I am assuming that since you have two drives you have tried the same cleaning cartridge in each and one ejects the tape much quicker that the other.
The E6 error reported in your logs decodes to a postioning error. However, since I do not know exactly what you were doing with the drive at the time of extracting the log it is difficult to confirm a cause here. My guess is that you tried inserting a cleaning cartridge several times and then inserted a DAT40 cartridge and generated a support ticket.

If you could spend a little time clearly restating you problem and what you have done and observed so far and generate an ticket in ltt format we should be able to help you.

Cheers,

Dave Dewar

[CA980983]

I had a similar problem. I had a software
problem and my time and date was wrong after I replace cmos battery and correct the software problem (by reinstalling) it is working ok. I hope this helps you. Nothing like a cold boot to find all kind of problems.

[meloni]

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HP C5683A unable to clean! ejects all cleaning tapes including new.
question: I cannot run a clean job on this drive. Environment is w2k sp3, Veritas BENT 8.6.

My backup job logs indicate that one of my drives must be cleaned. I have tried 3 different cleaning tapes both HP brand and other brands.

The tape is ejected after several seconds. The clean led on the drive never comes on at any point.

1. the only thing the users manual for the drive says is to insert a tape to clean it.

2. The only information I can find on this issue says that "your cleaning tape must be old"

this model is not an autoloader. is a stand alone drive.

What the HECK do I do in order to clean this drive?
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I think that you misinterprete the leds on the DAT,
the clean led come on when there is too much errors reading or writing a tape, and it is a cleaning request.
when you insert the cleaning tape, the activity led will blink for some seconds, depending of the use of your cleaning tape, *in my unit, it blink for 30 seconds.
Then the cleaning tape will be ejected.
Nothing in the DAT wil indicate you "cleaning in progress|, but if the yello led "clean" was on, after that process it will suth down.
Anyway, the cleaning recomandatuion for DDS products is around once per week with a daily backup.
I do not know why your Backup Software manage Cleaning request and could handle a cleaning tape, but I can suggest you to do it by hand, every monday, before to inser the first cartridge, perform a clean sequence.
Marino

[Jim Tyranski]

I'm having the same exact problem Ken is having, and it's on my W2k sp3 server.

I can make backups and restore just fine, but the cleaning light never comes on. When I insert a cleaning tape in the drive, takes about 30 seconds (I timed it) with the green light flashing, then ejects the cleaning tape.

I've tried everything this forum has suggested so far, even disconnecting the SCSI adapter to eliminate that possiblity. And I've made sure I have the latest Firmware and drivers for it.

I originally bought the drive from HP and the cleaning tape (came with a Verbatim 4mm DDS cleaning tape), and bought a second one right away.

I've done all the tests with the newest Library and Tape Tools and all seems to be working well, except it says I need to clean the drive. I'm including my .ltt file, so someone else can look it over.

This is my second drive from HP by the way. The first one worked fine with the cleaning tape and backups, then one day stopped. The replacement drive works with the backups and restores, but not the cleaning tapes.

[meloni]

Hi Jim,
as I wrote in my previous post, the cleaning light will be "on" only when a cleaning request is issued by the drive itself *when the errors are too hight reading or writing).
the message in L&TT "you are not cleaning your drive enough" is the result of a calculation betwwen the backup task and the cleaning task, the ratio have to be 5:1, you need to run one cleaning cycle every five backups.
the cleaning cycle is made when you insert a "non expired" cleaning cartridge in the DAT, then the green led will blink indicating DAT activity, (the orange led will not light on in this fase), and after 30-60 sec this cleaning cartridge will be ejected automaticaly. Cleaning cycle is performed
marino

[Barrie_Evans]

Jim,

The 30 secs for a clean is the expected time, and means that your drive has probably completed a full and correct cleaning sequence.

The cleaning note in your support ticket will appear everytime that you run the device analysis in L&TT, because there is no way for L&TT to know with a DDS drive whether the cleaning suggestion has been actioned or not.

If you want to remove it from the L&TT messages, and at the same time confirm whether there is actually any current problems with your drive, then I would recommend that you use L&TT to re-install the most recent firmware for your drive (this will clear some of the internal logs), and then run the tests within L&TT again.

cheers,
Barrie

[Jim Tyranski]

Thanks Barrie, I will try that next.

Only other question, is there is a clean light on the tape drive. Shouldn't that come on during the clean cycle?