Drive Load Error Type (3E), Drive TAF1ag[55] Loading Failure - PowerVault 124T

Question

PowerVault 124T - It started few weeks ago that it was always asking me to clean the drives even after I cleaned them I get this error : (Critical Drive Cleanup). Two weeks ago the system missed all my backups and now after 2 weeks of no backups I'm starting to be afraid, now it is worst than ever it is not working at all anymore, I get these errors :

Drive Load Error Type (3E)
Drive TAF1ag[55] Loading Failure

The autoloader is offline and everytime I turn it back online BackupExec shows me this error :

Normal 0 21 false false false FR-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Device Error

Robotic library hardware error.

The robotic library has reported a general hardware error condition. Manual intervention, calibration, etc., may be required. This may be a device related hardware problem, or it may be some other hardware problem (i.e. SCSI card/bus etc.). The library and drive states have been set to offline. Please attend to this condition.

V-275-550
Normal 0 21 false false false FR-CA X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4
Critical - The tape drive needs cleaning:

1. If the operation has stopped, eject the tape and clean the drive.

2. If the operation has not stopped, wait for it to finish and then clean the drive.

Check the tape drive users manual for device specific cleaning instructions.

Robotic Library: DELL 1

Drive: QUANTUM 1

And I keep loosing my slot 2 tape It does'nt see it.

Need help

tomwil2012 · Answer

Exact same thing has happened to us, with the exact same errors. Seems the PV-124T has planned obsolescence after about 3 years.

It appears it is a tape load failure because the tape cannot be loaded and threaded. The picker works fine and the tape does get inserted into the tape drive.

If anyone has a fix, please let us know.

DELL-Sam L · Answer

Hello tomwil2012,

When getting that error need to make sure that there are no tapes missing from the magazines. What you can do is to update to the latest firmware if have not already here is a link to download the firmware.

www.dell.com/.../DriverDetails

Once the firmware has been updated if it needs to be put only 4 tapes in the unit and run a random moves test. You can do so from the front panel or the web interface. Need to run the test about 10 cycles to see if it errors out putting the media in the drive. If it fails then disconnect the 124T from the server and run the test again. If the 124T fails off the SCSI/ SAS then the drive is bad as it is not loading the media and there is an issue with the drive.

Hope this helps & please feel free to contact us back if have any other question or get any new errors.

PowerVault

Drive Load Error Type (3E), Drive TAF1ag[55] Loading Failure - PowerVault 124T

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