Tape won't eject

[Heather Miller_1]

I have a Proliant ML370 with a Compaq DDS4 20/40 GB DAT drive with the latest drivers installed. I am using Veritas Backup Exec 8.6 for W2K. For some reason, the tape won't eject out of the drive (but there have been no error messages). I tried doing an "Eject" directly from Backup Exec, but it says there is no tape in the drive. I also tried to manually eject the tape using the eject button to no avail. Anyone have any clues?

Thanks,
H.

[User_6]

Hi,
Have you check whether the Veritas Backup Exec 8.6 support the W2K RSM? Some backup software require to disable this service before they can operate properly.

[Jake Richie]

Hi Heather
Have you tried power cycling the tape drive? If you have and it released the tape, you could be having software issues
make sure removable storage is stopped and disabled in OS services.
also try to reboot server, hitting pause while in POST mode..this will stop server from booting to OS. Insert a tape to drive and then when settled eject tape - if this works, then would suggest uninstall Backup Exec, reboot and reinstall.

[Heather Miller_1]

Hi,

I ended up powering everything off a couple of times and I finally got the tape to eject.

Thanks for your help.

H.

[Marino Meloni_1]

hi
the tape could be locked for eject by the software, in order to prevent to loose data when writing the tape. this is made throught a SCSI command sent to the tape.
If for some reason the communication between the tape and the server fail, the Tape device hang and stay in a preserve mode, this avoid you to eject the tape with normals operations. The first way is to force a eject with the sequence from the eject button depending of each tape device, this operation will wait some time in order to let a chance to the current operation to finish.
the second way is to go throught a power cycle,(wait a few minuts) (if the mechanical parts are out of control, the force eject could not be succesful)in fact this operation will reinitialize both electronic and mechanics, and then during self test, the cartridge will be ejected.
bye
marino

[lynxms17]

Heather,

I recently had an identical issue and resolved it as you did by owercycling the server. However, it reoccured a few days later. I reflashed the firmware on the tape drive and the problem has not happened since.

[Heather Miller_1]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the heads-up. I've been keeping my eye on it, and if it happens again, I'll know what to do.

H.