proliant tape drive

[Jeff Bilquist]

I have a Proliant 800 with a 4mm dt drive. Last week someone pulled the power plug while I was off. Today, I have a message "the driver detected a controller error on \device\tape0". I tried reinstalling the driver and the drive, only to receive the same error. The drive's yellow light just flashes constantly very fast. Is the drive toast or what? Thanks for any input.

[Jeff Bilquist]

I forgot to mention it's a Proliant 800 running Windows NT with Service Pack 6 installed. This has always been a geat machine. HELP!

[Tom Mucha_1]

Did you try rebooting the server yet? If not, shutdown the server, power cycle the tape drive, and bring the server back up. Sounds like the drive is out in SCSI-la-la-land!

[Jeff Bilquist]

Thanks for the quick reply Tom! I rebooted twice and did a complete shutdown twice, physically unplugging the server after the shutdowns. SCSI la-la land sounds pretty accurate for an NT box. Any more ideas?

[Tom Mucha_1]

Can you tell me which LED it is? I think those drives have 3 status LED's on the front.

Does the drive show up in the boot of the server?

[Jeff Bilquist]

There are 2 LEDs on the left side of the drive. It's the one on the right of the two. It's flashing at a breakneck pace. The drive is recognized at boot, and NT actually found it. Thanks again for you help Tom!

[Tom Mucha_1]

Not sure if I read the responce right --- is it working now?

[Ernest Ford · Accepted solution]

Right hand (yellow) LED is the drive status indicator - rapid flash means "A hardware fault occurred". You probably need to replace the drive.

[Jeff Bilquist]

Thanks for all your input. I spoke with HP/Compaq tech support and they came to the same conclusion. I'm ordering a replacement drive today.