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Tape stuck in tape drive

 
dictum9
Super Advisor

Tape stuck in tape drive



A 4mm DAT drive tape is stuck inside. When hitting the button to eject it, it does not eject. I tried running the following to eject it, but that did not help either.


mt -f /dev/rmt/0m offl


There is also stuff in /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log file which indicates a hardware problem.
Has the tape drive gone south?

Dec 9 04:10:13 phl1s408 vmunix: SCSI: Resetting SCSI -- lbolt: 1284636811, bus: 0
Dec 9 04:10:13 phl1s408 vmunix: SCSI: Reset detected -- lbolt: 1284636811, bus: 0
16 REPLIES 16
Bill Hassell
Honored Contributor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

If the tape becomes jammed and cannot move inside the drive, you can try the emergency eject by holding the eject button down for about 15-20 seconds. If that doesn't work, the drive will have to be replaced. The mechanism is so small and precise that once a tape gets stuck, it usually damages the alignment.


Bill Hassell, sysadmin
baiju_3
Esteemed Contributor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

Some times powercycling will help atleast to eject the tape . I have practical experience .

thx,
bl.
Good things Just Got better (Plz,not stolen from advertisement -:) )
dictum9
Super Advisor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

The tape is stuck even if I hold the button for a while.


Do you mean powercycling the entire machine?

The tape drive is hot-swappable, do you think if I remove it and power it up, it should come out?

What's the problem, anyway? Faulty tape or tape drive itself?
dictum9
Super Advisor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

Is there any way I can use xstm to troubleshoot this?

R.KrishnaKumar
Frequent Advisor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

Hi,

1.Power cycle the Tape drive and try ejecting the tape.

Need to know,
1.Whether u are able to perform any tasks on the tape drive like read/write ?
2.How did the problem happen?
3.Is the problem frequent or happened for first time?

regards,
Krishna

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

Hi,

It seems to be tape drive went offline. The tape won't come out until you do a powercycling to the drive. Normally these DDS drives no-hotswappable.
However I won't recommend you to powercycle the tape drive alone, when the machine is online. Plan a shutdown and take a reboot to the entire system.

Many times I had faced this same problem, reboot to the system has helped to to reinitilize the tape drive and remove the tape. But there is a probability that the same problem may repeat again.

How old is the dat drive?. If it's too old and you face the same problem again, better to replace it with a new one.

regards,
Sunil
Your imagination is the preview of your life's coming attractions

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

Hi again,

What's the LED status on the drive, is it glowing or went off. When you issue an ioscan -fnC tape what's the status of the drive, is it claimed.

I don't think so stm will help you to troubleshoot this issue.

Regards,
Sunil
Your imagination is the preview of your life's coming attractions
Sivakumar TS
Honored Contributor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive


Hi,

1.You can have a power cycle and check(entire machine / even drive will do ! but be careful )
2. Did you try new media.
3.Is the LED is amber in clour.

4.check the SCSI terminator also.

If all the above fails, then it is time to replace the drive NOW

WIth Regards,

Siva.
Nothing is Impossible !
Alex Grigore
Advisor

Re: Tape stuck in tape drive

Hi,

It did happen to me also and i couldn't get the tape out until a did powercycle the tape drive.

It will work,
AlexG