Have an old Sony SDT-9000 drive that I've had to do a manual eject on (as in, use a screwdriver with the Loading/Threading motor access point on the bottom of the drive to eject the tape). This is some time ago, and we were upgrading to an SDT-11000 anyway, so the drive has been shelved since. It is quite out of warranty (and was when this happened).
Recently, I've dug it back out to see what can be done. The tape loading mechanism will physically load and eject tapes fine, and the drive itself reports via 'mt' and Sony's own 'sonytape' program. However, when a tape is inserted, it is loaded, then the drive comes up with the 'Waiting for Eject' LED code. Commands accessing the tape (ie. 'mtx <dev> status') would simply go zombie, and refused to be killed until hitting the eject button on the front of the drive. As the manual gives the last step of the 'Emergency Cassette Removal Procedure' as 'Return the drive to a service station for repair,' I wonder if there's something 'tripped' in the drive itself, where the drive automatically goes to 'Waiting for Eject' status. I have upgraded the firmware in the thought that might reset the drive, but to no avail (though it no longer goes zombie when trying to access the tape, commands like 'mt rewind' come back with 'Input/output error' and 'mt status' reports: SCSI 2 tape drive: File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0. Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default). Soft error count since last status=0 General status bits on (50000): IM_REP_EN -so the process doesn't go zombie, just simply doesn't see the tape...). So, any thoughts, any experiences with the Sony SDT-9000 this way? Sorry to post this to the Amanda list (it'd actually be for a second Amanda setup if I can get it up and working again), but thought it'd be a good place to find down and dirty tape drive experience like this. Replies can be off-list, thanks. -- Daniel Bentley - Network Technician, QSI Corporation (www.qsicorp.com) "Exploits care not whence the clicks come..."
