SureStore Optical 40fx mount problem

[Brendan Brossard]

Hello,

One of our SureStore Optical 40fx jukeboxes is having trouble mounting disks on both of its internal drives. Our server software (runs on Win95) gives me a "optical drive failure" error one to two minutes after attempting the mount. The jukebox physically mounts and attempts to verify the media, but fails. I've tried testing the drives using the jukebox's internal testing program, and drive ID 0 will not test-- it gives a "no test" message on the LED screen-- however, drive ID 1 is testable, and passes. And sometimes, the jukebox somehow begins working as expected again. This is intermittant, however.

I've ruled out the SCSI card in the server being bad, as we also have an external SureStore Optical 5200ex drive attached to the jukebox, and it works perfectly. There are no SCSI ID conflicts. I'm thinking (and hoping) the logic board in the jukebox is bad, and not one or both of the drives. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks

P.S. This thread has been moved from Archival Products to Optical Jukeboxes & Drives - HP Forums Moderator

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Brendan,
- take new (just unpacked) MO-RW media (not WORM) and try accessing it. If it will work you may have bad MO disks inside lib;
- check all cables and terminators - any bent pins, unsecured connections etc;
- check environment: temperature (max 40C inside library), humidity;
- check SCSI cable length (SE=max 6m);
- install HP LTT http://www.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_doc/lpg50128.html and test library and drives;
- attach LTT support ticket to your next reply.
I think you have SCSI bus problems than bad drives. BTW, is 5200ex connected 'closer' to PC (SCSI HBA)? Try re-ordering devices on the bus
Eugeny

[Brendan Brossard]

I've tried reordering the devices on the bus, swapping the two internal drives' ID's. The server software did not like me swapping ID's, so, I had to leave it as-is. The external drive's ID is 3, where the internal drives are 0 and 1. The SCSI card is 7. I'll try what you've suggested. Thanks for the quick reply, and hopefully your suggestions will alleviate the problem. If not, I'll be back to post again. :)

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Brendan, you did not mention AutoChanger (robot) SCSI Id. Is it different than these 7, 3, 1 and 0?
Eugeny

[Brendan Brossard]

The ID for the AutoChanger is 6.

[meloni]

hi,
some tiome, as this is optical technologies, the optical lens can be contamined by dust, toner, and some volatil contaminents, if both disk have started to give you random errors at the same time and after didn't work toghether, contamination can be the cause, you can run L&TT (without shutting down the library after the test and the errors because you will lost information ) and look at the support ticket related to the drives if you get calibration errors, also be sure to update to the last version the bios of the drives.
marino