DLT VS80 Rejects ALL Cartridges

[Douglas McClelland]

I have a DLT VS80 internal tape drive installed in my PC server running Windows NT4.0 Server. Everything was fine until a few days ago. The drive now rejects ALL cartridges: new ones, previously used ones and cleaning cartridges. Here is what happens:

- Insert the cartridge
- the drive opens the cartridge and waits for about 2 seconds
- The 'ready' light flashes twice and the drive ejects the cartridge.

Remedial action taken:
- Powered off the server and restarted - no effect
- Reset the tape drive by pressing the eject button for about 7 seconds - drive reset itself but fault remains
- Installed the latest HP L&TT tape software and tools and upgraded the drive to the latest firmware - version V064 - fault remains
- Performed all tests that do not require reading/writing to a tape - passed all tests.

I do not know what else to try. Any ideas?

L&TT test log is attached.

[CA1332788]

DLT VS 80 use DLT IV tape cartridges.
Check to see you are using the equivalent of this.
Internal drive have been known to have problems with rails or screws pressing on the sides or causing pressure on the drive
This will cause the tape to mount incorrectly so the drive rejects the tape.

DLT VS 80 will eject tapes if it has been used by another drive other than VS 80. DLT 80, 70, and 40 drives format tapes differently and a VS 80 will reject these tapes.

Does the drive come to a ready state after it ejects the tape? Or is there an error light?

[adrien carlyle]

run a device analysis on the drive to see if there is a hard error log stored in the drive that may give you some clues.

other than that it sounds like it is not detecting media as being compatible and may be resulting from the heads failing on the unit.