DLT 40/80GB Cleaning tape light continuously on

[Peter Wood_3]

I indicator light to clean insert the Cleaning Tape never goes away. I have cleaned the drive several times with two different cleaning tapes but the indicator light still remains on. Does anyone have any ideas on how to resolve this?

[Marino Meloni_1]

cleaning request is lighted by the DLT itself, when he get errors over a threshold.
I will suggest to run L&TT that will analyse your tape drive, you can run also the media validation test in order to check your cardtridges and Read/Write test.

Be sure to use a DLT 40/80 good cleaning cartridge (vs80 are similar but do not work on these drives)

Be sure to use good kown data cartridges, bad cartridges will light up the cleaning request.

Remember also that an over cleaning of the unit will danage the head and then, no way you have to replace the unit

[Michael Tully]

Don't fool around too much with it, if is under a maintenance agreement get it replaced. You could run the LTT utilites, but given it's current state, your probably wasting your time. Extensive over-cleaning actually damages the drive(s). Never clean a drive unless it asks to.

[Mike Naime]

When my operators tell me this, I log a service call and get the tape drive(s) replaced.

Hopefully you have a maintenance contract on your tape library.