Table 10 DLT Cleaning Light Issues
Cause | Solution |
|
|
Contamination by loose debris | Avoid by ensuring the drive is operated in a clean, contamination- |
| free environment. Cartridges should be stored vertically in their |
| plastic cases. |
Contamination by head staining. | One or two passes with a cleaning tape should resolve cleaning |
(Caused by adhesion of chemicals | lights caused by normal head staining. If a cleaning tape is |
that are present in the tape media | unsuccessful in resolving a cleaning light after 3 or more attempts, |
to the head surface.) | the cleaning tape may be contaminated, and should NOT be used |
| in another drive |
|
|
Temperature and humidity | Tapes should be stored and used in the middle of the temperature |
| and humidity specifications range of |
A tape should be acclimated for a minimum of 24 hours before | |
| being used, particularly if it has been stored at a substantially |
| different temperature or level of humidity than the tape library. |
|
|
Wrong cleaning cartridge | Only use the cleaning cartridge specifically designated for each |
| drive type (see page 170). |
|
|
Wrong tape format | Attempting to load, read, or write tapes that were written in other |
| formats can cause cleaning lights. |
Abnormal build up of head | Do not perform frequent load/unloads without also doing tape |
debris. (Frequent load/unload | operations. |
operations with minimal tape |
|
reading or writing can cause this |
|
condition.) |
|
|
|
Bad/defective/contaminated | If a cleaning light is cleared using a cleaning tape, and then |
media | immediately reappears when a particular cartridge is reloaded, |
| that cartridge should be suspected as being contaminated. |
| If this occurs, |
| rare cases, a tape cartridge can be worn out, have bad calibration |
| tracks, or have a bad tape directory recorded by another drive. |
| Any cartridge that is suspected of being defective or contaminated |
| should NOT be reused in any drive. |
|
|
Expired cleaning cartridge | A cleaning cartridge is good for 20 uses. After that, the library |
| status screen will display EXPIRED. |
Cleaning requested/required and | Use of a cleaning cartridge should only be done when the library |
overuse of cleaning cartridges | status screen states CLEAN NEEDED. |
Old firmware revisions | If a cleaning tape does not resolve a cleaning light issue, make |
| sure the latest drive firmware is being used. |
|
|
A Appendix
Appendix A | DLT Drives and Tape Cartridges 173 |