Bob,

> Networker server: E450 running Solaris 8
> Tape Library: StorageTek L700e, 6 x HP LTO ultrium 1 drives, firmware level
> E225/005.074
>
> I flagged this problem last week and it's happened a couple of times since.
> Briefly, during a backup Networker reports a tape as "full", and on the
> nwadmin screen it reports the drive as "writing, finding eom". At this
> point the drive hangs and has to be power cycled to eject the tape.

I occasionally see similar things with my (STK supplied) DLT7000's.  It
usually turns out to be a faulty drive.

IMH (and maybe simplistic) O if you push the "unload the tape" button
on the drive it should unload the tape.  If it doesn't the drive has a
fault.

This is independent of whether or not you are using a dodgy tape,
cable, or host with the drive.  These things might be the root cause of
your problems, but the drive shouldn't suffer from such knock-on
effects.

The only small exception that I can imagine would be a damaged tape that
physically won't come out of the drive.  It seems that this is not what
is happening to you.

In a similar vein, when the drive signals that it is ready to have the
tape removed (via "operate handle" light on DLT's) it had better be
ready.  With some versions of DLT7000 microcode (a year or two back)
the drive was not ready; if you operated the handle too promptly the
tape would become stuck.  Obviously a robot is capable of being quite
prompt.  We had many problems before the drives were fixed...

George.
--
George Scott           George.Scott AT its.monash DOT edu
Systems Programmer, IT Services, Monash University

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