DAT24 Tape drive constantly wants to be cleaned

[Justin Tooley]

The tape drive constantly wants to be cleaned, it wont finish the daily backup because it wants to be cleaned.
I have tried cleaning it.
I have downloaded firmware for the drive.

What shall i do?

Thanks Justin

[Vincent Farrugia · Accepted solution]

Hello,

First, check whether your cleaning cartidge is expired or not. Cleaning cartidges can only be used 50 times. If you are not sure how many times you used it, try to give it a new cleaning cartidge.

If this does not work, I'm afraid you have to replace the drive. The heads became too worn off for even cleaning to be performed.

HTH,
Vince

[David Ruska]

Your drive may require recalibration of the write head currents.

If you are on a windows system, and run HP Library & Tape Tools, the "device analyis" test may suggest that the drive should be recalibrated.

Generally HP support will walk you through the recalibration process.

See a related posting:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0x88c60bce6f33d6118fff0090279cd0f9,00.html