Drive Offline

[Mohd Syafid Abdullah]

Hi Guru.
Im have trouble with my HP autoloader Sure Store
818. The message appear on panel " Drive Offline".
When i try to load tape, the panel appear error message " Hardware error 64h ".
What im gonna do?

Please help.

[Curtis Ballard]

I'm sorry to say that this is the typical failure mode for that drive. The drive did not complete the power on self test and will no longer communicate with the library controller.

I have looked at several drives that failed that way in these libraries and in every case the drive had to be sent back for repair.

[Mohd Syafid Abdullah]

Hi there,

Thanks for the information.
I already called the support center.The support person ask me to power off the unit and unplug the scsi cable connected to the autoloader.
I tried to do so and suddenly the drive able to work online. After several backup, the drive become offline again.
It seem to send it to repair..

Thanks for the information.

[Curtis Ballard]

Your support person gave you good advice. It is always useful to disconnect all of the cables from the library just to rule out any outside problems. I should have said that in my message. I tend to have these on the bench without anything connected when I start looking at them and I overlooked that step.

It is possible that a failing terminator or HBA (usually the terminator) can cause the reset line on the SCSI bus to toggle between off and on which can cause the drive to fail. If you have other cables/terminators around trying them before giving up on the drive would be a good test.