Ultrium 920 - Tape Stuck in Drive - Drive is Offline

[Jun Sarceno]

I have a tape that stuck inside an Ultrium 920. Physically ejecting and/or through Backup Exec 9.1 eject will also not work. The tape drive is flashing amber then green. I have rebooted the server numerous times to no success. Backup Exec 9.1 still shows drive offline and tape is still stuck with blinking lights.

[Jun Sarceno]

Just to add more information. I had to insert another tape because the job filled up the first one. After inserting the second one, it continued the backup. Then I checked back and notice the lights flashing on the tape drive - amber and green. After trying to eject it unsuccessful, I finally killed the job. But now a tape is stuck with the flashing lights.

[GustavoT]

Here's a document with instructions to unload a stuck tape for LTO drives, the Ultrium 920 is not on the list of affected devices but this procedure can be followed as well on it.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&objectID=c00795203&jumpid=reg_R1002_USEN

Hope this helps,

[Jun Sarceno]

Thanks for the information. As I cannot power down the server at this time, do you have any other suggestion. Also all the LED's are blinking in a pattern:
1.) All the lights blink amber (tape, disk, ready, etc)
2.) Then the ready light blinks green
3.) Then back to #1

Thanks again for our help.

[GustavoT]

You can try holding the eject button for 10 secs and it will try to eject the tape, this could take up to 10 minutes.

Also, if you have L&TT loaded you can run the LTO Stuck Tape Test and that will do an eject too.

Hopefully one of those two will take the tape out.

[Jun Sarceno]

Every time I started LT&T it crashes the server and reboots. I tried this yesterday when nobody was log on. I tried it 3 times remotely and it rebooted 3 times. Somehow, by playing with the properties of the tape drive (pause and un-pause), the tape drive is now online. But software eject still fails. Do you know where I can find information on the LED lights? The ones I found does not give information on my issue. All of the LED blinks amber for a second then the ready light blinks green then back to all LED to amber. Thanks

[Jun Sarceno]

I was able to get the tape stick out. Here is what I dud. I shutdown the server. When I powered the server, I held the eject button on the ultrium 920 for about 2-3 minutes. The tape started rewinding and then ejected within a couple of minutes. Thanks for your help.

[gregersenj]

Just in case, this might be helpfull to anyone.

It's most likely the power cycle, that resolved the tape drive, from hangin.

The tape drive was in failure mode. To get out of failure mode, it need to be power cycled. Since a server reboot doesn't power cycle, the tape will remain in failure mode.

I have experienced this behaviour, several times on DAT drives.

Pressing the eject button for more than 10 seconds won't make any difference.

After power on the tape drive have to finish it's self test, before it will react to any commands