Operation
Drive Maintenance
36
•
Keep the cartridge away from direct sunlight and heat sources, such as radiators, heaters or
warm air ducts.
•
Keep the cartridge away from sources of electromagnetic fields, such as telephones, computer
monitors, dictation equipment, mechanical or printing calculators, motors, magnetic tools, and
bulk erasers.
•
Avoid dropping the cartridges. This can damage components inside the cartridge, possibly
rendering the tape unusable. If a tape is dropped it is advisable to open the cartridge door
and make sure that the leader pin is in the correct position. A dropped cartridge should be
retensioned before use.
•
Do not bulk erase Ultrium cartridges. Bulk-erased cartridges cannot be reformatted by the tape
drive and will be rendered unusable.
Drive Maintenance
The Ultrium drive requires little or no maintenance. However, on rare occasions, the drive mecha-
nism may need to be cleaned.
Cleaning the Tape Drive
Excessive tape debris or other material may accumulate on the tape heads if the drive is used with
non-approved media or operated in a hot, dusty environment. In this case, the drive may experience
excessive errors while reading or writing, and the amber Status LED remains on continuously during
operation. This means that the drive heads need to be cleaned.
The LTO cleaning cartridge has the same dimensions as the data cartridge and contains an LTO-CM
(Cartridge Memory), but is loaded with cleaning media instead of recording media. Always keep
the cleaning cartridge in its protective case when not in use.
To clean the drive, insert a Certance-approved cleaning cartridge. During the cleaning process, both
the Status and Drive LEDs remain lit. After the cleaning process is completed, the cartridge may be
ejected automatically, or you may need to press the load/unload button to remove the cartridge,
depending on the drive configuration. Each time you use the cleaning cartridge, write the date on
the label for future reference.
Each time the drive is cleaned, the tape advances to a new, unused section of media. After approxi-
mately 50 cleanings, all of the media will be used up and you should discard the cleaning cartridge.
When a cleaning cartridge is used up, the amber Status LED flashes, while the green Drive LED
remains on. Do not reuse a spent cleaning cartridge
NOTE: If the Status LED comes on continuously within 24 hours after a cleaning cycle, perform
the cleaning cycle again. If, after three cleaning cycles in a 72-hour period, the Status LED lights
up again, contact Technical Support.
NOTE: The cleaning procedure will not run and the cleaning cartridge will be ejected in the fol-
lowing circumstances:
• The drive does not recognize the cartridge as an LTO cleaning cartridge.
• All of the tape on the cleaning cartridge has been used up (at EOT). In this case, the Status
LED will flash rapidly while the Drive LED remains on.
