Importance Of Routine Cleaning; Errors Resulting From Cleaning Neglect - Compaq AIT 35 LVD Reference Manual

6-2 Compaq AIT 35 LVD Tape Drive Reference Guide

Importance of Routine Cleaning

Errors Resulting from Cleaning Neglect

The tape drive has a cleaning roller built in which prevents and recovers from head
contamination. This feature minimizes buildup on the read/write heads so fewer
cleaning cycles with a cleaning tape are required. However, Compaq recommends
a routine cleaning schedule every 100 hours of use to keep the tape drive in good
working order. The drive will also need cleaning when the drive Status LED
displays long flashes with short pauses (See Table 5-2).
IMPORTANT: Regular cleaning is vital to trouble-free operation of any tape device.
Failure to follow recommended cleaning procedures could result in serious damage to the
tape drive.
When a drive is cleaned according to a regular schedule, one cleaning cycle
typically removes accumulated dirt and particle deposits. However, in a dusty
environment, or if a regular cleaning routine has not been followed, one cleaning
cycle may not fully clean the AIT 35 LVD drive read/write heads.
Following are some of the errors that can result from failure to observe routine
maintenance and cleaning of tape drives:
I
Dropouts
Caused by weak signal strength from dirty read/write heads, a dropout can
result in reduced tape capacity and backup performance.
I
Media errors
The backup tapes can be jammed, torn, or otherwise damaged by a dirty
read/write head.
I
Read or write errors
Because of a dirty read/write head, data may not have been recorded on the
tape during backup. Even if the data is on the backup tape, retrieval may not
be possible if the dirty head cannot read the data.
I
Format failures
During backup, data is laid on the tape in a certain format for easy retrieval.
A dirty write head can cause format failures, which means that data can be
lost or impossible to retrieve.
I
Bad blocks
Because of media damage (see media errors above), the tape may not accept
backup data. Also, the read/write head may be unable to retrieve data from
bad blocks.