Surestore DLT70 Help

[T R_1]

Can anyone tell me where to look for troubleshooting information on this tape drive?

I'm having problems with the drive losing communication with Windows (2000 Advanced Server). The device will be recognized and working properly, successfully wrote to, and then after sitting idle it appears to stop communicating with the server. If I look at Device Manager I get an "Unsafe unplugging device" error message. The tape drive also has all the lights on the left hand side (the compression lights) blinking in alternating pairs of three and four lights. Anyone know what this is trying to tell me?

[Joshua Scott]

Is this an internal or external drive?

if external, how long is the cable to it?

Josh

[T R_1]

It's an external drive, the cable is about 5 ft.

[David Ruska · Accepted solution]

If the lights are flashing on the left side of the drive, it may indicate it has a serious hard error or failed power-on self test. That could cause it to stop responding on the SCSI bus.

If you can get it communicating on the SCSI bus again (perhaps power-cycle it), then you can install HP Library & Tape Tools (www.hp.com/support/tapetools), and generate a support ticket (support tool -> save ticket to file), and post the .ltt file here. We can review the drive error logs to see if it provides any clues.

Does the drive have a dropped leader? Does it sucessfully load tapes or not? If the leader is dropped, you will hear a flapping sound when it attempts to load the tape.

[T R_1]

After some power cycling and tape testing here's what I've found.

If the drive has a tape in it when I power cycle the drive it will not load that tape. I hear it trying to load, but I hear a buzz/grinding noise that lasts for 1-2 seconds and repeats about every two minutes. After about ten minutes of this the lights on the drive start blinking and the drive loses communication.

At this point, if I remove the tape- power cycle the drive and then insert the tape it will successfully load the tape, no noises heard.

I'm not sure what a leader is, or how to tell if the unit has a dropped leader. Can you explain?

Also, I've attached the requested file to this posting.

[Joshua Scott]

The "buzzing/grinding noise" doesn't sound promising. given the age of the DLT7000 technology, you could probably get a replacement for it relatively cheap.

My DLT7000 is an internal in a W2K server, and when it loads a tape, it makes a very quiet whirring noise, about the volume of a cassete tape being rewound. I would suspect some sort of internal failure for the noises you describe.

Josh

[David Ruska]

I looked over the support ticket. The drive error log has a lot of "A402 Drive Error" entries, with servo type error codes. The drive is having problems tensioning and/or moving the tape.

It could be that you have one particular tape that drive is having problems with (i.e. the tape is binding). If you have problems on multiple tapes, it most likely means the drive has a hardware fault. The buzzing sound you hear is the drive resetting the head position, while trying to calibrate the tape.

[T R_1]

I've been curious about the possibilities of a bad tape, I have already placed an order for some new tapes which should arrive in the next day or so. Once they arrive I'll give them a try and let you know the results. Thanks for the help!

[David Ruska]

The support ticket error log captured failures for about the last 80 hours (the log wrapped around). The drive error entries happened on a number of different tape IDs, and typically happened after a 'directory read failure'. That suggests that the drive is having trouble reading tapes (which also includes servo tracks that affect positioning).

Looking at the tape motion hours (24578), if those are accurate, the drive has been moving tape for almost 3 years (which is a lot of use for a DLT drive), so I wouldn't be suprised if the drive had a worn head by now.

I also noticed the firmware you have is a bit old - the most recent release of firmware for the standalone version is V101. You can update that with LTT.

Once you have a new piece of media, I'd suggest running the DLT acceptance test (from the LTT Test tool), and see what results you get.