Wanda,

        I have had a very serious 9840 tape drive issue hinder our backup
environment and caused one of our STK9710's with 9840's to lock up for over
a month.  Apparently, if you are using anything above version 1.2.2 of the
9840 microcode, then it becomes incompatible with the ADSM software and
causes the ADSM software to go into error recovery.  STK did not tell IBM
that it treats an ioctl rewind with a drive sense of 3A now instead of an
04.  We spent 4 weeks beating our heads into the ground over this issue.  It
almost caused serious issues with our production systems as well. Please be
aware of this problem as it is very serious and will cause ADSM to do some
bizarre things with a very slow response time.  Supposedly, STK will be
providing a fix to the problem at the end of the month with another version
of drive code (1.2.5.112).  You can also call IBM as they also have a work
around to this problem.  Thanks

Matt Long
Systems Administration
Marriott International