Flashing lights I am having a status light flashing and then it changes to the error light flashing, I am unable to do anything, what can I do.

I had this issue and fortunately my tape drive was under warranty.

First off rang Dell and the technician tried fixing over the phone.

There are two types of flashing light (apparently) if the light is flashing slowly then the tape drive is telling you it needs cleaning, if the light is flashing fast then it is telling you that the tape (not drive) needs replacing.

The technician then said that if the tape drive was relatively new under 12 months then is was likely a software issue/conflict. My drive was nearly 3 years old, but he tried the software updates and restored the original defaults anyway and had no success, so they sent an engineer out.

When the engineer came out he replaced the drive immediately, i asked him what it was and he said when the drives get older or are used a lot they get clogged up with the metallic oxide ("DUST") from the tapes over time and they get to a point where they are so clogged they think they need cleaning all the time.

I asked if you could clean the tape heads yourself, he said you can but it is a real pain in the ***, so they don't, they just throw them away.

not much of a solution i know but this is whats happening, if your drive has done a fair bit of work then its a fair bet its knackered.

BTW: engineer did say you should only use good quality tapes as the cheaper ones give off more metallic oxide ("DUST") than the good ones.

I have several of these, what you do depends on if it?s an external or internal drive. External drives you can simply power down and restart using the power switch on the back of the drive enclosure. Internal drives you need to shutdown, physically turn off (I prefer to unplug as well) and restart. If this is an ongoing problem then you should call Dell for a warranty exchange, I?ve had two of these drives do the same thing, n exchange did the trick.