Chapter 4. Troubleshooting
• “Obtaining drivers and firmware upgrades” on page 28
• “Selecting a Diagnostic or Maintenance function” on page 28
• “General guidelines” on page 36
• “Methods of receiving errors and messages ” on page 37
• “Descriptions and corrective actions” on page 38
• “Drive Status” on page 43
• “Drive Maintenance” on page 44
• “Fixing SAS connectivity problems” on page 45
• “Resolving media-related problems” on page 45
• “Removing an internal SAS tape drive” on page 46
• “TapeAlert” on page 46
• “Recovering a tape cartridge” on page 50
Obtaining drivers and firmware upgrades
Notice: When firmware is updated, do not power off the tape drive until the update is complete, or the
firmware might be lost.
For information on the current versions of firmware, see the Dell support website at http://www.Dell.com/
Selecting a Diagnostic or Maintenance function
The tape drive can run diagnostics, test write and read functions, test a suspect tape cartridge,
and complete other diagnostic and maintenance functions. The drive must be in maintenance mode
to complete these functions. To place the drive in maintenance mode and select a diagnostic or
maintenance function, see Table 8 on page 29.
Note: The host interface on this tape drive is Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). This interface presents SCSI
protocol to the tape drive. In this User's Guide, references to SCSI relate to SCSI protocol, not the serial
interface that it is transmitted over.
Note: You cannot complete maintenance functions concurrently with read or write operations. While in
maintenance mode, the tape drive does not accept SCSI commands from the system. Close all tape drive
applications before maintenance mode is entered.
28 Dell PowerVault LTO Tape Drive: User's Guide