Resolving Media-Related Problems; Removing An Internal Sas Tape Drive; Tapealert - Dell PowerVault LTO8 User Manual

Resolving Media-Related Problems

To resolve problems that are related to media, the tape drive's firmware includes:
v Test Cartridge & Media diagnostic that verifies whether a suspect cartridge and its magnetic tape are
acceptable for use.
v Statistical Analysis and Reporting System (SARS) to assist in isolating failures between media and
hardware. To determine the cause of failure, SARS uses the cartridge performance history that is saved
in the cartridge memory (CM) and the drive performance history that is kept in the drive's Vital
Product Data (VPD) area in Non Volatile Random Access Memory (NVRAM). Any failures that SARS
detects are reported as TapeAlert flags on the system (see Table 9 on page 45).
If you encounter a media-related problem, use the following procedure:
Notice: When you run the Test Cartridge & Media diagnostic, data on the suspect tape is overwritten. If
valuable data is on the tape, be sure to copy the data before running this test.
1. If possible, run the tape cartridge in a different tape drive. If the operation in the other tape drive fails
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and or displays, replace the media. If the operation succeeds, run the Test Cartridge & Media
diagnostic (see Function Code E in "Selecting a Diagnostic or Maintenance Function" on page 27).
2. If the Test Cartridge & Media diagnostic fails, replace the media. If it runs successfully, clean the tape
drive and run the tape drive diagnostics (see the "Cleaning the Tape Mechanism" on page 23 section
and Function Code 1 in "Selecting a Diagnostic or Maintenance Function" on page 27).
3. If the tape drive diagnostics fail, contact Dell technical support. If the tape drive diagnostics run
successfully, perform the operation that produced the initial media error.

Removing an Internal SAS Tape Drive

To remove an internal SAS tape drive from the system, perform the following steps:
1. Ensure that the tape drive does not contain a tape cartridge.
2. De-configure the drive from the system. (For instructions, see your system's documentation.)
3. Turn off the power to the system. Disconnect the power cable from the system and the electrical
outlet.
4. Remove the system cover.
5. Disconnect the internal SAS cable from the tape drive (see number 1 in "Rear Panel" on page 6).
6. Remove the tape drive from the system and remove any mounting screws or rails from the side or
bottom of the tape drive.
7. To reassemble, reverse these steps.

TapeAlert

TapeAlert is a patented technology and standard of the American National Standards Institute (ANSI)
that defines conditions and problems that are experienced by tape drives. The technology enables a
system to read TapeAlert flags from a tape drive through the SCSI interface. The system reads the flags
from Log Sense Page 0x2E.
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Dell PowerVault LTO Tape Drive: User's Guide