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Anybody else had trouble with SDLT 160/320 tapes lately?

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8 replies

by dmambo

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I have a single cartridge HP StorageWorks SDLT320 tape drive and I run BUExec 9. The last few batches of tapes that I've bought for this have had numerous occurrences of write errors (cyclic redundancy check). At first, I tried to buy another batch of tapes and tried using a different brand. I have tried Sony, which seemed to help a little, and Quantum, which helped not at all.

After a long struggle with HP tech support running all HP diagnostics, and running Windows drivers with the same errors, I finally got a new drive from HP about 3 months ago. I reinstalled the latest Veritas drivers for BUExec and things looked good for a while. About 3 tapes into a third new batch of tapes, the same errors started back up. I use a cleaning cartridge regularly.

Recently, I have tried recycling old tapes from a few years ago, and they seem to run fine.

I'm convinced that the tapes are bad. I have bought them from 2 different suppliers and bought 3 different brands. Comparing the different brands of tape, they are remarkably similar, right down to the lot number formats printed on them. This makes me believe that they are all manufactured by the same supplier to Sony, HP and Quantum. I haven't been able to track down any improvement across lot numbers.

Has anyone else had similar problems? Any resolution? I'm a little reluctant to contact HP again because the replacement drive they send was accidentally shipped well after the old one had past warranty.

8 replies

by oh smeg

But I use Sony Tapes and am yet to have a problem with them.

As for the Errors check for a build up of junk on the Recording Head which may not be removed by a Cleaning Tape. I don't use Cleaning tapes after having problems with them from ages ago so now I use the Audio Head Cleaning Solution with a Cotton Bud on a Long Stick. These cleaning items are for HiFi but work much better than the Cleaning Tapes that I used previously. This is also what is used to Professionally Clean Video Players/Recorders and works well.

As for the tapes themselves I believe that they are all made by Sony so stick with the Sony Brand Tape as it seems to work better.

Cheers

Col

PM me if you need any more info.

by al savage

I have a Dell Powervault 110 tape library with a SDLT tape drive and have experienced the same problem. I have 100 old tapes that work great, I order 10 more (Sony, Dell, Quantum) and only half of the tapes will long erase or label.

The tapes all seem to be similar - even vacuum wrapped together but some will work fine while other do nothing but take my tape drive off line with errors requiring a cleaning and a reboot!

I do daily restores for my users so I know the old tapes work.

I have had Dell send me replacement tapes for the new bad tapes only to have about half of them fail as well.

I also had the drive replaced only to have the problem continue.

I assume it is poor manufacturing, low quality or lack of demand that is causing this bad tape problem.

by dmambo

...to spend $50 on a tape to have it fail after just a couple of write sessions and maybe 10% of its capacity. Have you tried to contact the supplier about a refund? I will be doing that soon.

by robo_dev

That's what I've seen on IBM drives. Believe it or not, the solution was to change the boxes used for offsite storage to some very well padded tape transport boxes.

On your tape drive warranty:

Not sure about HP warranty, but if the 'problem' is recognized within the warranty period, the fact that it took them longer to fix it does not exempt them from responsibility.

So if you take your car into the dealer at 35,999 miles and tell them the transmission is shifting funny, and they say it's OK, when it fails the next week, you are still under warranty.

by dmambo

The tapes that have been failing are direct from the supplier. The old tapes pulled from storage have been AOK.

As far as the warranty goes, when I started dealing with HP, the drive was already a couple of years past warranty. When a service manager called me after I filled out a survey complaining about my tech support experience, he informed me that the drive should never have been replaced. I told him that unless he could have my exact original drive returned to me, they better not invoice me for the replacement. That was the last I heard from them regarding my complaint or the shipment error.

HP's errant warranty exchange might be one good result of their tech support offshoring. :)

by oh smeg

Many years ago I had a nasty experience with HP over a Connor Tape Drive. It left such a good taste in my mouth that I have never dealt with HP since and that was direct contact from the HP reseller chain to Trade buyers.

Tape drive failed while UG and there was no Warranty details in the paperwork that came with the drive. I rang my suppliers well actually [b]SWMBO[/b] did as I was more than busy at the time and a simple Warranty Claim was so easy to start off [i]or so I thought.[/i] The girl who answered the phone asked SWMBO when the problem was explained [b]Where the F##K did you get this phone number.[/b] Well when I was jumped on I just didn't believe that any business would answer the phone that way so I rang them and got the same response. I then asked to speak the the Manager and Identified myself so the girl passed me on and I was told to grab a Melbourne Phone Book and look up HP Service Center to start a Warranty Claim off. They being very helpful didn't have any way of contacting them or even a phone number for their customers to ring. I eventually found the Phone Number listed under this heading Service Center:- ################## and that was the way that you where supposed to contact HP for start a Warranty Claim on this particular product. So I would say that if anything since the Outsourcing the Service Has Improved. It was impossible to get any worse as they actually hid the phone numbers to even consider starting a Warranty Claim. Their product must have been real CRAP if they found it necessary to hide the Return Center from the Resellers not sure how the End Users where supposed to get along but the drive in question was only 3 months old and the drive belt broke.

Col

by davidl

Nearly identical symptoms, except for different backup software. Replacement drive didn't help. I have also suspected that all brands are really manufactured in the same place and they have had a bad batch.

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