What is the best way to know if a tape is present in the drive or not?

[Raghavendra R Gamoji]

Hello folks,

I know my question is very basic. But I want to know the simplest command/way to check it.

TIA(tnx in adv),
Raghu.

[Vincent Stedema · Accepted solution]

Hi,

You can try:

mt -t status /dev/rmt/0mn

It prints status information on the tape if there is one present in the drive.

Vincent

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

# mt -t /dev/rmt/0m status

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Steven Sim Kok Leong]

Hi,

Apparently, only Linux supports the status option. You can try any of the other valid options such as rew and offl. Catch the error code to identify whether a tape is inside the drive.

# mt -t /dev/rmt/0m rew
# echo $?

# mt -t /dev/rmt/0m offl
# echo $?

Hope this helps. Regards.

Steven Sim Kok Leong

[Vincent Stedema]

Oops, I got the syntax wrong...

Steven's right: it's "mt -t status". If you're running hp-ux 11.00, the syntax can be either "mt -f status" or "mt -t status".

Vincent

[Raghavendra R Gamoji]

Hello Vincent/Steven
Thanks a lot ;)
Raghu

[Roberto Martinez_2]

I think the best way to know if a tape is present in the drive or not is to try to insert another tape. If you can't, the drive wasn't empty.

[Bill Hassell]

The status option was added to mt for 11.0, but not for 10.20 or earlier. The rewind offline (mt -t xxx offl) will pop out the tape. I am assuming that you want to detect the tape's presence for a backuo script, so don't use offline or the drive will always be empty.

[Tom Danzig]

If you do:

mt eof

and check for exit status 0, this will not only tell you that there is a tape in the drive but also that it is not write protected.