Status light

The Status light is a light-emitting diode (LED) that provides information about the state of the drive. The light can be green or amber, and (when lit) solid or flashing. Table 1 lists the conditions of the Status light and single-character display (SCD) and provides an explanation of what each condition means.

Table 1. Meaning of Status light and single-character display (SCD)

If the Status light is...	And the SCD is...	Meaning
OFF	OFF	The drive has no power or is powered OFF.
Green	OFF	The drive is powered ON and in an idle state.
Flashing green	OFF	The drive is reading from the tape, writing to the tape, rewinding the tape, locating data on the tape, loading the tape, or unloading the tape.
Flashing green	OFF	The drive contains a cartridge during the power-ON cycle. In this case, the drive completes POST and slowly rewinds the tape (the process can take up to ten minutes). The light stops flashing and becomes solid when the drive completes the recovery and is ready for a read or write operation.
Flashing amber	Displaying error code	The drive is displaying error codes from the error code log on the SCD.
Amber	Red numbers, letters, or segments	During the power-on/initialization and POST (power-on self-test), the SCD briefly displays , then becomes blank (not lit) when POST is complete and no POST errors occur. If a POST error is detected, an error code is displayed in the SCD and the Status light flashes amber.
Amber	Flashing	The drive is exiting from maintenance mode.
Amber	Flashing function	The drive is running the maintenance function.
Flashing amber once per second	Displaying error code	An error occurred and the drive or media might require service, or it might require cleaning.
Flashing amber once per second	Displaying	The drive needs cleaning.
Flashing amber twice per second	OFF	The drive is updating firmware.
Flashing amber twice per second	OFF	The drive detected an error and is running a firmware recovery. It resets automatically.
Flashing amber twice per second	Flashing	The drive is requesting a cartridge to be loaded.
Flashing amber twice per second	OFF	A drive dump is in flash memory.
Flashing green	Displaying	The drive is performing media optimization.
Power must not be removed from the drive until the microcode update is complete. The drive indicates that the update is complete by resetting and running POST.