Henrik, when we first installed lto-4 tape drives, we had a few problems with 
them. The IBM ce downloaded a dump of data from the tape drive and send that on 
to the higher level support folks. They asked to update the firmware, which was 
just release. This help us greatly. 

Our tape drives are installed in an IBM  3584 (aka TS3500) so the tape drive 
dump can be gathered either via the CE's laptop tools or via the IBM library 
web interface. 

If you are using IBM's drivers, you should be able to download the drive dump 
via a utility supplied with the driver code. In our case this was not an option 
as the tape drives were attached to an netapp box.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU] On Behalf Of 
Richard Sims
Sent: Tuesday, July 21, 2009 1:50 PM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Re: [ADSM-L] Errno = 23, 1167 and stuck tapes

Henrik -

I don't have a direct answer for you; but my suspicion is that drive
microcode is involved, perhaps in conjunction with cartridge vs. drive
characteristics.  The IBM readme document S1003097 for LTO4 shows a
very large number of problems that have had to be corrected,
suggestive of more, ongoing.  The stuck tape situation may suggest a
problem managing the mechanics and/or timing of drive operations.
Given the mechanical malfunction which results, I'd have your CE
attend to the next event, to examine the conditions logged in the
drive's memory, to try to uncover the cause.  The inability of an OS
command to effect tape dismount indicates a serious problem.  If the
CE can't be gotten in time during the next event, see if you can have
the operator get at the drive to record any error codes on its panel.
Make sure the CE pores over the sense bytes you're getting from the
drive.

    Richard Sims