Maintenance
You need to perform minimal maintenance to ensure that your tape
drive operates in peak condition. This section explains how to care
for the tape cartridges and how to clean the drive head.
Caring for tape cartridges
The following points are guidelines for storing and using the
cartridges:
Do not open the tape access door of the cartridge or touch the
tape itself.
Keep cartridges away from sources of electromagnetic fields, such
as telephones, dictation equipment, mechanical or printing
calculators, motors, and bulk erasers. Do not place the cartridges
on the computer monitor or on the base unit of the computer.
Keep cartridges away from direct sunlight and heat sources, such
as radiators or warm air ducts.
Keep cartridges free of moisture. Do not wet or submerge
cartridges in any liquid.
Do not expose cartridges to temperature extremes.
Retension tape cartridges that have not been used for more than a
month before restoring or backing up data. Retensioning is the
winding and rewinding of a tape cartridge. This action restores
the proper tape tension to the media. The back-up application
software provides a function to retension a tape cartridge.
Cleaning the tape head
To properly maintain the drive, periodically clean the tape head. You
do not need to perform any other periodic maintenance. Use a dry
process cleaning cartridge such as IBM PN 16G8583 or Imation
0-5122-12132-6 to clean the tape head once a month, or after each
eight hours of continuous read/write operations, whichever occurs first.
The dry process cleaning cartridges can be obtained through your local
computer supplies dealer. You also need to clean the drive two hours
after you first use a new data cartridge.
Once the cleaning cartridge is inserted into the tape drive, the cleaning
process is automatic. The entire process takes only a few seconds and
is completed when the drive activity light stops flashing. The cleaning
cartridge is good for 30 cleaning operations.
2-10 10/20 GB TR-5 IDE Tape Drive User’s Guide
