I have a tape drive (about 1 year old) in my Linux box (Linux been installed
about 3 months) but I'm having trouble accessing it.
The following is the output of various mt commands

SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (50000):
DR_OPEN IM_REP_EN

Above: it seems to be able to detect there is no tape in the drive....
DR_OPEN???

[root@localhost simon]# mt -f /dev/st0 status
SCSI 2 tape drive:
File number=-1, block number=-1, partition=0.
Tape block size 0 bytes. Density code 0x0 (default).
Soft error count since last status=0
General status bits on (10000):
IM_REP_EN

Above: Now there is a tape in the drive

[root@localhost simon]# mt -f /dev/st0 erase
/dev/st0: Input/output error
mt: The device is offline (not powered on, no tape ?).

Above : confused??!?!?

[ Post a follow-up to this message ]