Performing manual cleaning of drives in the library

This section introduces two ways that you can perform manual cleaning of drives in the library.

Attention: Before performing a manual cleaning operation on the TS3500 tape library, make sure that the tape drive is empty. To learn whether a drive is empty, refer to the sections that describe how to use the web, operator panel, or Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to determine drive status. If a cleaning operation does not complete within 9 minutes, the drive might contain a cartridge. In this case, an error message appears.

IBM® does not recommend that you clean a drive on a periodic basis; the drive detects when it needs cleaning and the library displays a message that indicates which drive needs to be cleaned. However, if the library does not issue a message and you determine that a specific tape drive needs to be cleaned, perform the manual cleaning operation.

To perform manual cleaning, use one of the methods that follow.