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..."
|
