HP sure store E 10/180

[jitendra kumar]

Hi friends
we are using HP sure store tape library 10/180.
Occassionaly we find the following alert during backup.
Tape Alert [13]: There is a potential problem with a drive ejecting cartridges short

or with the library mechanism picking a cartridge from a slot.

1. No action needs to be taken at this time.

2. If the problem persists, call the library supplier helpline.

Although backup gets completed successfully.
Two months earlier same sort of initial alerts concluded into backup failure and it was fixed by drive replacement.
could u please dig out the reason of such messages..
regards
jitendra

[Stuart Whitby]

Looks like a well defined message to me. The robot picker arm is having to retry taking the tape from the drive once it's ejected. This could be one of two reasons:
- the tape hasn't come far enough out of the drive to be picked up easily
- the picker arm is out of alignment and is trying to pick up the tape from the wrong place.

(think "pin the tail on the donkey" and you've got it).

Backups will be fine, as the writing of data to tape is not affected. The only problem is when the tape needs changed, when this may not be possible. Given that this is the second time that this has happened within a few months, I'd check the robot arm alignment rather than the tape drive.

[David Ruska]

Jitendra,

Tape alert messages are very high level reports of either critical or warning events. They are just a set of flag that are set to indiciate specific conditions. In this case flag 13.

The best way to diagnose problems with the 10/180 is to review the FSC (fault symptom codes) available from the front panel, web interface, or diagnostic ports. The FSC codes are very detailed and will indicate hard errors as well as recovered errors. For errors with drives in particular, it will indicate which drive encountered the problem. Drive load/unload problems could be due to bad media, a defective (or incorrectly seated/aligned) drive, or potentially a robot issue.

Have your support engineer review you FSC logs would be my recommendation.

[jitendra kumar]

Thanks stuart for ur response.
As you have pointed out that mechanical functioning of the drive may be the reason, seems to be true , because this kind of alert is coming from a specific drive.
Is there any way to check mechanical health of the drive.
regards
jitendra

[jitendra kumar]

Hi David
Thnks for ur response.
Could you favour me with any docs or link regarding analysis of FSC codes.

[David Ruska]

Jitendra,

The users manual on page 107 explains how to view the FSC logs:
http://h200001.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpg28357/lpg28357.pdf

However, it does not give the interpretations for the 4 digit FSC codes. These are documented to the HP service personal only. The codes can very depending on firmware versions. You should call HP support to have them review your FSC logs.

[David Ruska · Accepted solution]

You had also asked:
> Is there any way to check mechanical
> health of the drive.

HP Library & Tape Tools (www.hp.com/support/tapetools) can be used to collect logs (FSC logs for the library, error logs for the drive) as well as run tests. For the drives, an "assessment test" will do a check of the overall drive functionality (including writing/reading). HP L&TT runs under HPUX (command shell), Windows (GUI), and a few other OS platforms (command shell).

[jitendra kumar]

Thnks friends for ur valuable moments.

[jitendra kumar]

closing this thread.