HP Surestore 15 Slot DLT7000

[Raymond R Walsh Jr]

Everytime I attempt to scan or Format a tape, I get a Cleaning Tape Requested error. The drive has been cleaned.

[Florian Heigl (new acc)]

sounds like You have a positioning problem with the drive.

also check Your scsi connection (termination!) is ok, if that is verified I think it's best to get an onsite tech to look into the issue, it smells like a drive problem.

[Curtis Ballard]

I suspect that the head on your DLT7000 is worn out. There aren't many of those drives left that don't have worn out heads.

When the DLT7000 heads wear out the primary symptom is that the drive always requests cleaning.

One way to keep running for a while that has had some success is to check for tapes that are working better than others. The way the media flows over the head becomes more important as the heads wear. Sometimes you can find several tapes that work fine long after other tapes won't work at all.