Raw error monitoring and reporting

DETAILED DESCRIPTION It would therefore be an advantage to provide for early warning of tape deterioration or tape head clogs that allows preventive measures to be taken.
Another advantage would be to provide for a tape head cleaning procedure performed by the tape drive in the event of the occurrence of an error that could not be corrected by re-reads or re-writes.
The foregoing and other advantages are provided by the raw error monitoring and head self-cleaning procedures of the invention.
The raw error monitoring procedures 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 diminished or 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 is carried out pursuant to the occurrence of an error that could not be corrected by re-reads or re-writes, and 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 read or write operation is terminated and the user is notified of the occurrence of an uncorrectable error.