> mt works on tape devices, not generic SCSI devices.  Try
> 'mt -f /dev/nst0'.
>
> > I'd thought the command:
> > # mtx -f /dev/sg0 unload  12 1
> > would not need to function together with mt.
>
> It depends on the loader (and, sometimes, the loader's firmware settings).
> Sometimes you can just send an 'unload' to the robot and it'll tell the
> tape drive to eject the tape, and sometimes you need to explicitly
> 'mt -f /dev/nst0 offline' before the 'mtx unload' will work.


that seems to have been the case here.
Thankyou very much. I'm off to the next problem.

Rich