Stuck Tape Ultrium 230

[Jacob Mueller]

I have gone through all the Hardware eject solutions and yet I am unable to eject the tape.

I could manually eject the tape but this will render the tape device inoperable.

How can the HP Diagnostic tools help?

Can it eject the tape?

[Richard Bickers · Accepted solution]

Hi Jacob,

HP's Library & Tape Tools offers a 'stuck tape' test for LTO that does its best to unload a tape from an LTO drive.

It can't do much more than make sure the Prevent Media Removal is not set and trigger a forced eject but that does actually solve most 'stuck tape' issues because in most cases the tape isn't physically stuck. You do need to allow up to 10 minutes for the tape to eject as the algorithms can get quite complex.

If you've power cycled the drive and used forced eject (hold the eject button for 5-10 seconds) then you'll have done the same things in which case it may be physically stuck rather than 'logically' stuck.

It would still be worth a try.

Also, if you pull a support ticket with LTT you can look at the Drive Health->Device Analysis section and it may tell you more about the state of your drive from analysing the logs.

You can find LTT at www.hp.com/support/tapetools.

Richard (HP LTT team)

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Hi jacob,

Have you powered off you tape drive before ejecting it?

[Michael Richter]

Hello Jacob,

please see the following page for ts:

HP Ultrium - Troubleshooting for the Ultrium 230
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c00039807&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

attached is additional a document to reject the stucked tape


Cheers
Michael

[Jaclyn Rothe]

LTO units are usually OBDR sequence ready. You can usually trick the drive into ejecting the tape by envoking this sequence.
Depending if this is a internal or external unit the steps will differ slgihtly.

Basically...
Turn off the tape drive.

While it is off press and hold the eject button while powering on the tape drive.

Hold the eject button for ten seconds after power up.

The LED's will flash in a sequence you likely have not seen before... the tape drive should be responding to you...

Press the eject button normally, or wait for the drive to eject the tape on it's own (usually 5 minutes).


NOTE: this may not work if there is currently a tape drive fault (light) or if the leader is broken or dropped in the drive. This is usually accompanied by grinding, clicking or flashing LED's. In this event your drive is already destroyed and should be replaced. Nevewr re0use a stuck tape, 99% of the time they got stuck because they were damaged in the first place.

[Jacob Mueller]

I have all the information I need, thanks