Autoloader 1/8 G2 requests cleaning tape every time

[Informatica SSRP]

Hello, we have this hardware working for 3 years without problems

HP Proliant 570 G3

HP Autoloader 1/8 G2 with LTO3 drive

SCSI connection to a dedicated (and supported) HBA in the server

NTBACKUP as backup software

Lattest firmware (for drive an autoloader)

Lattest drivers (for windows 2003 -physical, no virtual machine!!!)

6 months ago the library begins to request cleaning tape every 2 or 3 weeks. We insert a cleaning tape and all were fine.

Then every week.

Then every 2 days.

Then every day.

Now we insert a new blank tape, and when we write on it, the drive requests clean, so we clean the drive, put a blank tape, and drive becomes dirty again.

And this is the problem: can't use the drive because it requests cleaning every time

We tested with 5 different universal cleaning tapes and same thing happens.

I attached support information generated with LTT.

Any ideas?

Thanks

[RbBsmn]

If LTO drives are constantly a cleaning it usually means they are busted (or extremely dirty tapes are being used).
Will check the log when I'm online on my pc.

[RbBsmn]

Btw do you have Windows Server 2003 R2? In that case you might want to update your Stortport driver as the standard one from 2003 R2 is known to have issues with tape drives. However I would be surprised if that resolved this issue.

[Rajat Bhargava]

The LTO drives are self cleaning drives and as mentioned in an earlier post on this thread, drive asking for multiple cleaning, it generally means that the drive is dead. I had a look at the logs and I am pretty sure that it would need replacement.

Regards

Rajat Bhargava

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