LTO error 5 and 6

Hello everyone,

I have an mTape LTO 7 drive which is out or warranty by about 4 months and only had 6 tapes put through it. It has now developed an error 5 and 6. (media or hardware error). The mTape guys want $1800 to put a refurb unit in. I’m feeling that I got a lemon because it’s only 2.5 years old and not many tapes went through it. The company says that IBM will not replace it as its out of warranty.

As I don’t have that much data on tape I’m considering changing my archive strategy. What are others doing? Should I get the drive repaired or look for another system.

What do you think I should do?

Anyone have a contact at IBM I could call?

Thanks for reading

These things can be very susceptible to dust. I had mine cleaned and got another year or so out of it. And $1800 is not a bad price. I think they’re more than double that new.

If you’re just a few months out of warranty, perhaps the credit card it was purchased with has an extended warranty feature. A lot of personal and some business credit cards have this feature.

Have you tried a head cleaner tape? Worth a shot if you haven’t. About every 2 months I need to clean mine especially when I’m restoring old projects.

Yes thanks for your reply. I put the cleaning tape through it a few times. The guy’s at mTape acknowledge that the unit is faulty and needs replacing.