Gene Wirchenko wrote:

The system sucked air through my tape drive, and the dust ended up killing the drive.

I had to notice that the DVD burner on the PC in post #1 is no longer able to successfully finish OPC.
Don't know whether that was caused by the cleaning. It still worked a few weeks ago...

For just this reason I have decided to buy my next LTO device in an external case, so I can keep it clean by having it turned on only when actually needed.
I guess I'll consider purchasing an USB DVD burner for this exact reason, to avoid having to buy a new DVD burner every year...