I recently had two drives break on me. First a DLT 4000 120T and then a DLT 7000 120T. Both of them were mearly taking an inventory of a newly installed tape. The tape got stuck and the drive reported an error. I couldn't get the tape out to save my life. What I finally did was power down the DLT drive. Then, using a flashlight, I took a look around the inside of the drive. When looking at the stuck tape, you will notice a gear that is to the right of the drive bay. This gear can be moved with your finger and will eject the tape. However, before you do this, you have to release the tape. Its held in the drive bay by a small locking mechinism. Again, just to the right of the drive bay there is a small black piece of plastic. It is RIGHT next to the drive bay, inbetween the bay and the aftforementioned vertical gear. I used a flathead screw driver to push this plastic piece to the right while using my hand to move the gear. Once this is done, the tape ejects.
Now, my main problem is that I cannot use this drive still, even though I got the tape out. If I power cycle the drive, it takes forever to initialize and then either fails, or shows up in Backup Exec as being offline. The bad thing is this happened to me on two different drives, about 2 months apart. I couldn't believe I had to buy ANOTHER drive. I called Dell and talked to a Powervault tech and he walked me through a couple things, but basically said that he was pretty sure that the drive was toast. I finally said heck with it and I started to tear apart the DLT 7000 to find out why the drive keeps failing. I found out if you take all the screws (except fan screws) off the back of the drive housing, you can pull on that handle that's on the back and slide the entire drive out. I also could hear something like a piece of tape, flapping around in side the drive when the unit was trying to initialized. After I slide the drive out, I pulled this clear housing off the top of the drive and could see what looked like a piece of tape. But I found out it was actually what is called a drive leader. It basically is used to pull the tape out of the cartridge. I found out my leader was broke and by looking at how it was attached on the inside, it looks like a piece of cake to replace. I found a site online that sells replacement leaders... 5 for $90. A lot cheaper than buying a whole new drive!! Then I found this site that explains how to change the leader itself:
I don't know if any of you had this same problem, but I thought I would share it with you. Hope this helps. If you have any questions, send me an email and I'll try to help you out.
cphillips@digital-hwy.com
Chris
Now, my main problem is that I cannot use this drive still, even though I got the tape out. If I power cycle the drive, it takes forever to initialize and then either fails, or shows up in Backup Exec as being offline. The bad thing is this happened to me on two different drives, about 2 months apart. I couldn't believe I had to buy ANOTHER drive. I called Dell and talked to a Powervault tech and he walked me through a couple things, but basically said that he was pretty sure that the drive was toast. I finally said heck with it and I started to tear apart the DLT 7000 to find out why the drive keeps failing. I found out if you take all the screws (except fan screws) off the back of the drive housing, you can pull on that handle that's on the back and slide the entire drive out. I also could hear something like a piece of tape, flapping around in side the drive when the unit was trying to initialized. After I slide the drive out, I pulled this clear housing off the top of the drive and could see what looked like a piece of tape. But I found out it was actually what is called a drive leader. It basically is used to pull the tape out of the cartridge. I found out my leader was broke and by looking at how it was attached on the inside, it looks like a piece of cake to replace. I found a site online that sells replacement leaders... 5 for $90. A lot cheaper than buying a whole new drive!! Then I found this site that explains how to change the leader itself:
I don't know if any of you had this same problem, but I thought I would share it with you. Hope this helps. If you have any questions, send me an email and I'll try to help you out.
cphillips@digital-hwy.com
Chris