Tape is not accepted in Ultrium 448 tape drive

[Λουκάς Σδρόλιας]

I have the same proble on two identical HP Storageworks Ultrium 448 drives. When I try to insert a tape, either used or new, the tape advances up to a point and is not placed into the correct position inside the drive for operation. When I press the Eject button the tape is ejected and the ???tape??? led flashes. I followed the troubleshooting guide on HP???s web site with no success.

I have used HP Library and Tape tools 4.1 to generate a Health report for each drive

[Pavaman]

Hi,

The doc attached has a problem, some words at the esn do fot eh line cannot be read. Could you please resend the right doc.

Are you able to move the tape to any other location in the library?

Pavaman

[Richard Bickers]

Can you attach the raw support ticket as that will have additional information that we can dig deeper into? That's the *.lzt format file you get when you save the ticket with default options.

From the PDF it shows the drive is struggling to load the tape but it's very odd this is suddenly happening with two drives and multiple tapes. It would normally be a specific drive or tape issue and not occur if the offending part was removed. Not seen this failure mode before.

Only thing I can think of is if one of the tapes has actually damaged both drives but that's normally associated with contamination which would cause write/read issues rather than mechanical. Very odd.

Anyway, the raw ticket will give us a little more information so please attach that. Pull the ticket after you've tried loading at least two different tapes. Perhaps also do the same for the other drive and attach a ticket so we can compare.

[Λουκάς Σδρόλιας]

I attach the first raw support file

[Λουκάς Σδρόλιας]

I attach the second raw support file (both files wer taken after I tried to load 2 tapes into each drive)

[Richard Bickers]

It looks like drive HU1072726D may have a load problem. It's struggling to spin the take up reel (the one at the back) to wind the tape in to get to the starting point. If this has happened on multiple tapes then that does sound like a drive issue. I'd have to get advice from the lab on the details of the failure but I'm afraid there's not much you can do to fix that.

Drive HU10740KPC seems to be in better shape but has rejected a tape because it can't pull the leader in. If this is the same tape then I'd put that to one side and try another tape in this drive. My guess is the drive is OK but you were trying to load a tape that may have been messed up by your other drive.

You'll need to inspect the offending tape to see whether you can recover the position of the leader. Open up the little door and take a look see if anything looks out of place. Compare it with another one.

Best I can suggest for now. Fingers crossed at least one of your drives is OK. I'll forward the tickets on to the guys in the lab to see if they can be more specific on the cause of the failure.

[Λουκάς Σδρόλιας]

Thanks very much for your help. Drive HU1072726D has been already replaced by HP as it was still in warranty. The other one seems to be OK. Thanks again