INFO: Drive Cleaning Management for Changer Devices (325210)

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Changer devices (which are also known as media libraries) that require periodic drive cleaning and that support automatic cleaning operation in the hardware should indicate that they require this cleaning to Removable Storage. One of the tasks of Removable Storage is to initiate and to control the cleaning operation of the drives in the changer device. For example, Removable Storage reserves a cleaner slot, mounts and dismounts the cleaner cartridge in the drive to be cleaned, and tracks the number of cleanings that remain on the cartridge.

The changer mini-class driver indicates that the changer's drives require periodic cleaning by setting the CHANGER_DRIVE_CLEANING_REQUIRED bit in the Features0 field of the GET_CHANGER_PARAMETERS structure. To indicate the hardware support for the automatic cleaning operation, the CHANGER_CLEANER_OPS_NOT_SUPPORTED bit should be reset in the Features1 field of the GET_CHANGER_PARAMETERS structure. This is filled in the mini-class driver's ChangerGetParameters routine according to the changer hardware specification.

After Removable Storage determines that a drive requires cleaning, it instructs the hardware (through the changer class and mini-class drivers) to perform the cleaning operation (for example, to move the cleaning cartridge from the cleaning slot to a drive, to clean the drive, and to restore the cartridge back to the cleaning slot).

Alternatively, if a changer device implements a self-managed cleaning operation feature (that is, self-initiating and controlling the cleaning operation), the changer device may confuse Removable Storage if the operation started without the consent of Removable Storage. Removable Storage neither supports this type of cleaning feature nor provides a way for these devices to administer their own cleaning operation. For such devices to use their capability and to work gracefully with Removable Storage, the mini-class driver should indicate to Removable Storage that the device does not support automatic cleaning operation by setting the CHANGER_CLEANER_OPS_NOT_SUPPORTED bit. By doing so, Removable Storage does not initiate any cleaning operation when Removable Storage determines that cleaning is necessary. In this case, Removable Storage logs an operator request to perform drive cleaning and leaves the cleaning operation to the device or to the user to perform the cleaning operation in the preferred way.

NOTE: Because the CHANGER_CLEANER_OPS_NOT_SUPPORTED bit was set, the user may receive the following error message from the Cleaner Management Wizard (Ntmsmgr.msc) for changer devices with self-managed drive cleaning feature: This may confuse the user because the device operation manual indicates that the device supports automatic cleaning operation even though the Cleaner Management Wizard does not.