HP StorageWorks DLT-80 Internal doesn't load tape

[Piotr Rybicki]

Hi all

The drive can't load/initialize tapes.
When I power up the drive/server i can hear a buzz-sound from the drive form about 1 sec.

After tape insertion it goes into a loop like this:

- led is flashing and the drive spindle is turning in both directions at various speeds.
- after about 10-20 sec. spindle stops, all leds are on (not flashing), then all leds are off, there is a 'buzzz' sound and we go back to sequence.

This could be a caused by hevily exploited cartridges, but after a few tests (ltt) on a blank new one, The cartridge doesn't initialize anymore.

I don't post a service ticket from ltt here, because i think it's not related to my problem.

How to understand this sequence?
Is there anything I can do to solve this problem (of course apart from replacing the drive).

TIA

Piotr Rybicki

[Naveej.K.A]

Hi Piotr,

Time to call your HP support engineer..
Its the belt inside the DLT which has got broken and needs to replaced.

With best wishes
Naveej

[David Ruska]

You may have a "dropped leader" condition. This is a stiff section of tape attached to the take up reel used to pull the tape out of the cartridge into the drive on load.

Look at this doc:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=lpg50027

And to reattach:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=lpg50338

[Marino Meloni_1]

It may also bee that you have power supply failure, causing a reset of the unit, you can check in the L&TT Sticket at the value PC (power cycle) and see if it have a higher value that what expected

[Piotr Rybicki]

First of all thanks to All for replies.I don't think it's a dropped leader problem.Since it's a internal drive i can see what's going on inside :-)The stiff tape inside the drive looks OK.In a no-cartridge state it's attached to arm with hook, and when I insert cartridge it's being attached with a tape inside cartridge. Nothing suspicious with this.It looks to me like somie kind of a media recognition problem (magnetic head calibration?). The 'buzzz' sound gets from a magnetic head when it performs a full-length movement.Additionally i can hear the buzz sound when I power-up the drive.RegardsPiotr Rybicki

[Marino Meloni_1]

The buzz souond is normal and part of the initialization process, it is some kind of head calibration, like the one it took place in the floppy disk drives, the motor go to home position sevral time in order to start from a well good starting position

[David Ruska]

As Marino says, the "buzz" is the head being positioned against the hard stops during calibration.

Install HP LTT (www.hp.com/support/tapetools) and generate a support ticket (support tool -> save ticket to file) and post it here (the .ltt file). We can look at the drive error logs to see what is going on.

[Piotr Rybicki]

Again thanks to allHere is the ticketThanksPiotr Rybicki

[David Ruska]

Piotr,

Thanks for posting the ticket. There are no hard errors in the drive logs. The only of interest is the high write (soft) error rate. Since the drive has very low power-on and tape motion hours, I would be more likely to suspect the problem is with the media (or with contamination on the head).

I'd suggest running a new cleaning tape in the drive a few times, and then run the DLT acceptance test (within LTT) on the drive, on a new tape.