Quantum LTO-2 User Manual

Chapter 7  Troubleshooting Guide

Problems During Backup/Restore Operations

LTO-2 Half-Height Tape Drive User’s Guide

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This message means the tape drive does not recognize the cleaning 

tape as being of a valid type. You may have purchased a cleaning 

tape that is not supported by the tape drive. Purchase a supported 

cleaning tape.
If the tape drive issues a message to backup software to instruct you 

to clean the tape drive, you may see the message:

“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.”

This message means you should use a supported cleaning tape.

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There are many factors that can make backups appear to be “slow.” To 

achieve the highest possible transfer rate, the LTO-2 half-height tape 

drive MUST be attached to a Low Voltage Differential ( LVD ) SCSI 

controller capable of a minimum of 80 MB/s and MUST not share the 

same SCSI bus as another active SCSI device such as hard drives.

Is the tape drive attached to an LVD SCSI controller? This can be 

determined by viewing the boot process of the system and looking to 

see what controller the tape drive is attached to. There may be boot 

log files that can be examined to determine what SCSI controller the 

tape drive is attached to.

If the tape drive is not attached to an LVD SCSI controller, attach the 

tape drive to a LVD SCSI controller to achieve best possible hardware 

performance for best possible transfer rate.

If the tape drive is attached to an LVD SCSI controller, see whether 

the tape drive is the only device on the SCSI cable? This can be 

determined by viewing Windows Device Manager, viewing Unix/

Linux logs, or by viewing SCSI controller during system boot up. 

If other SCSI devices are attached to the SCSI controller and are active 

during the time when a backup is performed to the tape drive, have 

the tape drive as the only device on the SCSI cable to achieve the best 

possible backup performance.