Issue with Quantum DLT7000 tape drive. Can anyone help?

[dltusermg]

Can anyone help troubleshoot an issue with a Quantum DLT7000 tape drive (Model # TH6BF-EY)?

This is an external SCSI drive. The company I work for has been using this tape drive for several years to backup and retrieve files. But it has developed an issue.

When working normally, on power up the drive illuminates all of it’s indicator lights, then makes a brief buzzing sound, then after a few seconds it makes a beep sound in tandem with lighting up the “Operator Handle” light on the lower right side of the drive’s face.

A couple of days ago, when powered up, it started waiting several more seconds between the buzzing sound and the beep sound, and instead of illuminating only the “Operator Handle” light, it illuminates all four lights on the right side, blinking the three lights that are above the Operator Handle light. Upon erroring out, the drive cycles through the same sequence again, with the same result. Tapes can be loaded into it, but the drive doesn’t do anything with the tapes because it doesn’t get past it’s startup sequence successfully.

Per their website, Quantum no longer supports this drive. Their manual does not include a troubleshooting section.

Has anyone ever seen this issue before, and if so is there a known fix? The blinking lights are obviously indicating some sort of error (probably mechanical?), and I’m trying to find out whether the issue is user-fixable or not.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[WyomingKnott]

With all due respect, I suggest that you buy another one used or off the "new old stock" market. When I search for it, I see prices of $300 and less. If you need your backups, it's worth the investment.

While I usually don't suggest spending money like water, business backups are critical and frequently ignored or mishandled - I once retrieved a backup tape to find it, and several others, unreadable. Unless the company is on a shoestring, I strongly suggest buying two new drives of a current model and doing backups to these in the future. If current drives use different media, and you have the time and manpower, copy the old backups to the new media.

So much for my personal opinion on backup devices. Can someone help the OP troubleshoot his drive?

 

[dltusermg]

Thanks WyomingKnott. It is looking like this may end up being either a repair or a replace situation. I'm inquiring because my boss asked me to see if it was serviceable.

 

[Hawkeye22]

I agree. It's probably a mechanical problem and needs replaced. As a long shot, have you tried running a DLT cleaning tape through it. I know there is a "cleaning" light to show when it needs cleaned, but I've got lucky before by just running the cleaning tape through about 4 passes and brought the drive back to life.

Good luck.

 

[dltusermg]

Thanks for the help folks! I spoke with my boss and went the repair route as an intermediate step to switching to a HDD solution. Found a shop that can repair it, knows what they're doing, and charges a reasonable price.

As an aside to hawkeye22, it would have been great to use the cleaning tape, but the drive wasn't even seeing/accepting tapes because it couldn't get to the "ready" state. The repair tech I spoke with said it could be the drive's main board, which they will replace if necessary. First they are going to take the drive apart and do a thorough cleaning and see if that resolves the issue.

Thanks again!

 

[spunner5]

They're always serviceable by one of the Tape Drive houses around the country and worth a shot.

First question, if the drive is totally isolated, with only power applied, does it do the same thing?

If you open the flap and you look into the mouth of the drive, in the back should be the "Leader". Its a piece of reinforced tape that has a small arrowhead-shaped tip. Is it there? Many times the symptoms you state are from the Leader being swallowed, so if you look in and don't see the leader, that's likely the problem.

Background: One of the first tests of the motors is to make sure there is tension on the take-up reel. It will pull on the leader (sorry, the leader is "hooked" near the arrowhead-tip and is affixed to the take-up reel at the other end) to make sure there is tension. If the takeup reel spins, then the leader is off-the-hook and may just need to be restrung. I'm sure there are videos out there some where as we used to ship "Leader Kits" to the technicians (5 Leaders and cotton gloves) as this was not an uncommon occurrence.

What makes a leader fall off? You have a "bad" piece of media in your pool. Every single time you touch a piece of ANY tape (DLT, SDLT, LTO) you MUST inspect it. Finding a piece of media that doesn't look right probably just saved you a lot of time and money in down time or repair costs. For DLT:
1. Shake the tape. You might hear the spool shifting in the case, but you should not hear small loose pieces.
2. Visually inspect. Look for cracks, signs of being dropped, cracks etc. Discard if found.
3. Poker Chip. Flip upside-down in palm of hand. Using your thumb, push down on the spindle (aka the Poker Chip) and quickly release. It should spring back up and not bind.
4. EOT Inspect. Open the door and look at the eyelet, which is the physical end-of-tape (EOT). Flick it with your fingernail or a clean instrument, as we're looking to make sure its not split. This is the #1 most common reason that the leader is swallowed by the drive (or that the eyelet isn't even there!).

SDLT is slightly different in that the EOT are two black hooks, connected by a chromed-rod. These should be parallel to one another, the rod not bent, etc. Same issue here, in that if there is something wrong with the EOT in the cartridge that the Leader of the drive will be swallowed and must be restrung. We actually used a 9V battery to restring the leaders on these drives!

If you make these four steps a habit, and you do this every time a piece of bare media is in your hand, you'll get many, many years of service from your DLT, SDLT, and LTO drives.