Operating Your Tape Drive
Loading a Cartridge
42
Loading a Cartridge
Seagate DDS drives have a front-loading cartridge bay for easy operation. To load a cartridge:
1.
Hold the cartridge so the label is facing up and the exposed media is facing the drive.
2.
Gently insert the cartridge into the drive (see Figure 13 on page 42). The drive-bay door
opens automatically when a cartridge is inserted.
After you insert the cartridge, there is a brief delay while the drive identifies the cartridge type
and state, and moves the tape to the data area. Then the Media LED turns ON.
FIGURE 13.
Loading a Cartridge
Initializing a Blank Cartridge
When you insert a blank cartridge into the drive for the first time, the drive takes from 10 to 12 sec-
onds to determine that the tape is blank. The drive automatically initializes the tape as soon as it
receives a SCSI “Write” command from the host computer. Initializing a blank tape takes about 30
seconds.
