Anyone ever done any work on a DLT drive, specifically an SDLT-600 drive? I have two that won't POST, and it appears that the tape takeup mechanism has gotten disconnected somehow. I'd like some insight on how it's supposed to fit together. A service manual, if someone can find one, would be great, too.

Well, now I have experience. The tape takeup mechanism has a leader with a pin bound to it, running across the width of the tape leader. That pin is supposed to be either in its little parking/docking clip or attached to the clip at the head of an inserted cartridge's tape.

In one of my cases, it was floating loose. I don't know how that happened.

In the other, it was still attached to the docking clip when it should have been attached to the head of the tape. It appears that the tape's clip had gotten bent and the tension on the pin was too great for the docking clip to be able to extract it.

I managed to spend my entire day at work today dealing with this one issue.

Check the tapes that have been used in those drives recently. A bad DLT tape can cause leader pickup issues in the drive like what you saw. This was the most common DLT tape drive issue I saw back at HP.

If I remember right, there were three quick things you could examine on the tapes to see if they are OK. Press in the spindle core on the bottom gently. It should spring right back into place. Gently shake the tape, nothing should sound like it is loose. And then open the tape access door and make sure the end of the tape has an unbroken leader on it.

Good call. I'll make sure to do that.