8mm and 4mm Tape Drive Cleaning Process

This section provides you with a recommended process for cleaning your tape drive, including when the drive should be cleaned.

Tape Drives:

The unit should be cleaned when enough data has been written to fill four tapes.

A cleaning kit for these tape drives can be purchased from Silicon Graphics. Contact your local sales representative for more information.

Perform the following steps:

Prepare the tape drive to be cleaned by powering on the unit. When the power-on cycle is complete, open the door and remove any data cartridges in the unit. Leave the door open.
Place the cleaning cartridge (from the cleaning kit) into the drive and close the door.
The remainder of the cleaning process is automatically performed by the tape drive. When the cleaning process is complete, the cleaning cartridge is automatically ejected from the drive. The average cleaning cycle is 15 seconds.
On the cleaning cartridge label, record the date the cleaning was performed, then store the cleaning cartridge for future use.
Do not store the cleaning cartridge if the cleaning dates have filled the cartridge label. Discard the cleaning cartridge and store a new cleaning cartridge for future use.

If the cleaning cartridge is ejected from the tape drive without performing a cleaning cycle (before 15 seconds), the cleaning cartridge has reached the end of its useful life and should be discarded.

Do not rewind and reuse the cleaning cartridge.