wet cleaning

[Ayman Altounji]

Our customer has asked us to "wet clean" the tape heads using tape head cleaning solvent ( isopropyl based ). They are getting backup failures and the " use cleaning tape " LED comes on after each backup. This happens after using the cleaning tape and a new data tape cassette. Insight manager does NOT indicate and errors on the tape device but sees the clean request LED is on.
I think that the construction of the tape head uses a glue to hold the read/write heads in place which might become loose or breakup if solvents are used. Please confirm.

Thanks,

[Ayman Altounji]

Whoah... this isn't your VCR from 10 years ago here!! They make special cleaning tapes for DLT drives. What would be a reason to use solvent to clean a DLT drive? Call CPQ, I don't know if this would be covered by warranty.

[Ayman Altounji]

The cleaning tapes have been used but the " Use Cleaning Tape" LED comes on when another backup is run> We replaced the data tapes with new ones but the drives LED still comes on. They asked us to wet clean because their system operators used to clean the old IBM tapes this way. As you have advised, I advised them not to do this on DLT's. There seems to be a lot of topics in this forum for this problem but no real answers apart from replacing the DDT. ( most of our customers are just out of warranty.

[Ayman Altounji]

We have a similar problem with one of our tape drives. After each backup, the drive cleaning light comes on and we get an alert suggesting we need to clean it.

Anyone have any suggestions other than replacing the drive?

[Ayman Altounji]

Used it Kit:

SDLT 110/220 Part Number 270445-B21 (includes SDLT cleaning cartridge) Maintenance Kit

Regards,
Braulio Sanchez