Source: http://xkcd.com
I ran in to an issue the other day at work. We have three tape backup units serving ten servers, two Seagate DDS4 DAT-72 drives that are around four years old, and an HP Ultrium 2 purchased earlier this year.
Over the last three weeks, the cleaning lights on the Seagate drives started lighting up on a daily basis. I tried running the cleaning tapes three times in a row for a few days, and even replaced the cleaning tapes, but there was no difference.
A little Googling suggested that the drive heads were likely wearing out, but I wasn’t ready to give up on the drives yet. Taking a page out of my NES repair guide, I lifted the flap on the front of the drive and blew in. After getting a mouthful of dust, I repeated the action and then did the same on the other drive.
Since then both drives have gone back to only requiring a weekly cleaning. Who says the Nintendo Generation has contributed to troubleshooting?
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