DAT24 cleaning forever

[dave woolcock]

C1556A Surestore DAT24

1. Job fails and "Clean" light comes on.
2. Insert cleaning tape + clean it
3. goto step 1

tried brand new DDS3 tape and new cleaning cartridge

Has the drive had it, or is there a fix?

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Dave,
run HP LTT analysis for this device http://www.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_doc/lpg50128.html . It may ask to recalibrate drive's heads.
DAT drives should be cleaned after every 5 full backups or 20 tape pulling hours. If you did not follow this rule then consider your drive is at the end of its shortened life cycle
Eugeny

[CA923306]

Dave, what Eugene has mentioned is correct. Dat drives must be cleaned once a week or every 20 hours of tape backup. You can, however, run your cleaning cartridge through 5 times consecutively. Doing so should enable usage for at least a few months, eventually the drive will need to be replaced. You can download Performance Assesment Tool ("PAT") from hp.com > support & drivers which can run tests to tell you what drive is best suited for your system and backup needs.

[Jeff XSi]

Also in the Storage Works LTT there is an option to run a "Recalibaration" of the Heads... This should only be run under the supervision of HP support personnel...
-Select your drive
- Click Utilities
- Click Run Script
- Browse for scripts in the default folder and select DDS_Write_Recal
- Select this file
- Click Run Script
- Insert tape.

Secondly your cleaning cart could have expired - 20 cleans and its finished :)

All the above info is correct on cleaning frequency and I would add that you should upgrade the f/ware BIOS also.

Thanks

Jeff