Script to test whether there is media present in a removable tape drive?

I have a SCSI DAT tape drive on a Windows 2003 server.

I want to write a script that reports whether there is a tape inserted in
the drive or not.

I'm not sure if this is possible or not...

Can anybody assist with a pointer?

thanks in advance

--
Simon Verona

mr_unreliable
Wed Aug 16 15:23:40 CDT 2006

Simon, the IsReady property is us used for "most" mountable
drives.

For example, to determine if there is a diskette (remember
them?) in the drive:

Const sDrvLtr = "A:\" ' drive letter for diskette drive...

Set drv = fso.GetDrive(fso.GetDriveName(sDrvLtr))

If (drv.IsReady) then ' is there a diskette in the drive?

On the other hand, I am not sure that a DAT drive is
supported by fso.

You might also try searching this ng's archives. I seem to
remember this question being asked before.

cheers, jw

Simon Verona wrote:
> I have a SCSI DAT tape drive on a Windows 2003 server.
>
> I want to write a script that reports whether there is a tape inserted in
> the drive or not.
>
> I'm not sure if this is possible or not...
>
> Can anybody assist with a pointer?
>
> thanks in advance
>

mr_unreliable
Wed Aug 16 16:05:34 CDT 2006

Simon, the IsReady property is used for "most" mountable
drives.

For example, to determine if there is a diskette (remember
them?) in the drive:

Const sDrvLtr = "A:\" ' drive letter for diskette drive...

Set drv = fso.GetDrive(fso.GetDriveName(sDrvLtr))

If (drv.IsReady) then ' is there a diskette in the drive?

On the other hand, I am not sure that a DAT drive is
supported by fso.

You might also try searching this ng's archives. I seem to
remember this question being asked before.

cheers, jw

Simon Verona wrote:
> I have a SCSI DAT tape drive on a Windows 2003 server.
>
> I want to write a script that reports whether there is a tape inserted in
> the drive or not.
>
> I'm not sure if this is possible or not...
>
> Can anybody assist with a pointer?
>
> thanks in advance
>

Jerold
Thu Aug 17 07:28:40 CDT 2006

On Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:02:20 +0100, "Simon Verona" <nomail@nomail.zzz> wrote:

>I have a SCSI DAT tape drive on a Windows 2003 server.
>
>I want to write a script that reports whether there is a tape inserted in
>the drive or not.
>
>I'm not sure if this is possible or not...
>
>Can anybody assist with a pointer?
>
>thanks in advance


You can use RSM.

See tip 5955 » How can my scheduled Ntbackup react to my failure to insert a tape in the tape drive?
in the 'Tips & Tricks' at http://www.jsifaq.com

Jerold Schulman
Windows Server MVP
JSI, Inc.
http://www.jsiinc.com
http://www.jsifaq.com