C1533A erratic backup windows 2000as

[Alan Morris_2]

I have had a C1533A for some time. After using it temporarily on another system I started getting problems, the symptoms of which are that backups (using windows2000 NTBackup) fail. There is sometimes a message in the event log saying insert new media, but not always. I have never seem an error reporting tape errors. In the failure state the little green and yellow LEDs are flashing.
Inserting a cleaning tape (with life still) does not cure it.
Cycling the power sometimes does. The drive passes the diagnostics using HP Tape tools!
I notice that the tape does sometimes making regular mechanical operation noises, are these error recovery?
Any help/suggestions warmly welcomed,

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Alan, you're right popping sound of drive is internal cleaning mech sound when drive tries to recover errors. Did you clean drive every 5 full backups or every 20 tape pulling hours?
Try to clean it 5 times then check. Also check if drive has latest firmware (by LTT). For testing please use new DDS2 HP tape C5707A.
Please reply with server and SCSI controller do you have unit connected to. You may wish to try drive with HP recommended SCSI HBA - sometimes it solves issues - http://www.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_doc/lpg50063.html
Eugeny