Cleaning the drive head
Use an IBM® Ultrium cleaning cartridge to clean the tape drive head.
About this task
Attention: When the drive head is cleaned, use
the IBM LTO Ultrium cleaning cartridge (see Ordering media supplies). You might use another LTO cleaning cartridge, but it might not meet the standards of reliability that is established by IBM.
Clean the drive head whenever 
displays on the Single-character Display (SCD) and the Fault light
is flashing once per second. It is not recommended that you clean the drive head on a periodic
basis; only when the drive requests to be cleaned.
Note: In Maintenance mode, a flashing with the Fault light On, means to insert a cartridge,
not to clean the drive head.
with the Fault light On, means to insert a cartridge,
not to clean the drive head. To clean the head, insert the cleaning cartridge into the tape load compartment (see Front panels of the drives). The drive completes the cleaning automatically in less than 3 minutes, then ejects the cartridge. The drive completes a short load/unload test while the cartridge is ejected. Wait for the drive to finish before the cartridge is removed.
Note: The
drive automatically ejects an expired cleaning cartridge.
The IBM LTO Ultrium Cleaning Cartridge is valid for 50 uses, and then must be replaced.