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Abstract

A method for monitoring the performance of a DAT drive and a method for self-cleaning the tape heads of a DAT drive pursuant to the occurrence of an error that could not be corrected by re-reads or re-writes. The monitoring method includes the steps of (a) reading a tape, (b) determining for each of successive groups of frames respective A track and B track reference error counts representative of the A track and B track C1 error counts in each group of frames, each group having the same number of frames, and (c) providing a warning signal indicative of degraded performance if (i) either the A track reference counts for a predetermined number of consecutive frame groups exceed a predetermined threshold or the B track reference counts for a predetermined number of consecutive frame groups exceed a predetermined threshold, or (ii) if both the A track and B track reference counts for the predetermined number of consecutive frame groups exceed the predetermined threshold. The self-clean procedure includes the steps of moving the tape to the end of the tape at a speed higher than normal, moving the tape to the beginning of the tape at a speed higher than normal, positioning the tape at the location of the error, providing a warning to the user, and resuming the operation that resulted in occurrence of the error. If the error persists, the user is notified of the occurrence of an uncorrectable error.

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