Hi,
I was getting more and more errors with my tapedrive, so I ordered a
cleaning tape for this drive. However, what I received was not a
cleaning tape but a cartridge with pieces of foam and a flacon of
cleaning fluid.
When I inserted the cleaning cartridge in the drive, the led started
blinking, and that was all. However, the led continued blinking after I
removed the tape, so I had to do a cold reboot. (yes, power off, power
on...)
When I insert the cleaning cartridge on boot time, it starts to wind
furiously, and I can hear the cartridge squeak and rattle, so I suppose
it is cleaning. This goes on for a while, and when it stops and I remove
the cartridge, the foam piece is roaming around somewhere in the
tapedrive. Upon closer inspection the foam appears to be ragged, so it
seems reasonable to to dispose the foam pieces after use, as the manual
tells me.
But I don't like the fact that pieces of foam remain somewhere in my
tapedrive very much, and the fact that I have to reboot my server just
to clean the tapedrive is not really acceptable, especially because the
manual suggests to clean the tapedrive after an hour use and a backup
takes 2 hours...
So, my questions are:
- Is this behavior normal?
- Can I just clean the head with a cotton bud and the fluid? seems
better than foam in my tapedrive...
- How often do you really need to clean tr-3 tapedrives? or is it better
to get a new one?
- Are real cleaning _tapes_ without foam and fluid available for TR-3
tapestreamers? If so, where can I order them? I live in the Netherlands.
I don't like this situation, as I have a lot of tapes for this drive and
I would really like to use them again...
Wouter
