Cleaning of drive

[564705399]

I am not able to submit a cleaning job. The only help available in the Ref Manual is cleaning of Robotic Library (saying something about Cleaning Slot which I am not able to define). In the left pane DriveTasks->Clean is greyed.

When I insert the cleaning tape into the drive it sounds like the cleaning starts, but noe cleaning statistics for the drive is updated.

Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong?

-Nils

[Ken_Putnam]

Veritas never has reset stats automatically. You need to do that yourself

You can only schedule a cleaning job on a Library. For a stand-alone drive, just insert the cleaning tape, wait for it to finish, and remove it.

[priya_khire]

Hello,

This is to ensure if you were able to run clean jobs successfully? If you are still having problems with the same, to add to Ken's mail, you can check the following steps as per the technote in order to configure cleaning:

Title: How to configure and submit cleaning jobs for autoloaders in Backup Exec 9.x and 10.0 for Windows Servers
http://support.veritas.com/docs/257265

Do update us if the problem persists. Do also write back if it is now resolved. In case we do not receive your update within two business days, this post would be marked ‘assumed answered’ and would be moved to ‘answered questions’ pool.

Regards.

[Madhuri_Shenoy]

As per our previous reply, marking the case as "assumed answered" and moving it to "answered questions" pool.

[Jonathan_Reddin]

On the manual cleaning of a stand-alone drive, is there any kind of log that is created, to ensure that the cleaning has taken place? Anything?????!

[Ken_Putnam]

Nope.

That's why the cleaning tape manufacturers give you a little grid to check off each time the cleaning tape is used. When the grid is full, toss the cleaning tape.

Since for a standalone drive you have to manually shove the tape in, just stand around for the minute or so that it takes for the tape to run, then manually reset the cleaning stats in the GUI

[Nancy_Miller]

I'm new to this.... Am I understanding correctly?

STAND-ALONE-DRIVE cleaning is as simple as: inserting tape, wait a minute for it to finish running, remove tape, check off another box on the sticker.

STAND-ALONE-DRIVE cleanings are NOT tracked by the software... but the date of last cleaning can be changed.

[Jurgen_De_Gre1]

yes, :)

The device itself give's a signal to use a cleaningtape.

[Nancy_Miller]

...? the tape-drive knows when it needs cleaned?

HOW do I know WHEN to run CLEANING tape?

I use a stand-alone-drive: Dell PowerVault 110T.
I run 1-tape every night Mon-Fri

Thanks!

[Patrick_Taylor]

Thanks for the feedback on this. I noticed that BE doesn't recognize, inventory or acknowledge the cleaning tape in any way. Why does it for the autoloader but if you have a stand alone drive it provides nothing ?

Also, I noticed that while I am able to reset the Cleaning Statistics, I am unable to reset the LAST CLEANING DATE.

This is frustrating as it's now my requirement rather than the software's to remember when I last cleaned my drive.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Pat

[Todd_Henry]

I have a similar frustration.  We've had several issues where the tape drive will need cleaning during a backup operation and it will cause the job/jobs to fail, because it ejects the tape and prompts for a cleaning in BackupExec.

We have a standalone LTO3 drive and I understand that you cannot schedule a cleaning job.  Other than the indicator lights on the device we have no way of telling when the drive needs cleaned.  I would prefer not to have a procedure in place to clean the device once a month or even quarterly.  I've read that cleaning media is abrasive to your tape drive.

Can we prevent the aforementioned from happening within BackupExec?