Seagate STT3401A on FC2

[Ken Carr]

We're running FC2 (recently upgraded from FC1) on a Dell Power Edge
400SC. We have just started trying to use the tape drive. The hardware
browser identifies the drive as Seagate STT3401A, /dev/hdd

With a tape installed, we get the following:
[root at flclxserver root]# mt -f /dev/hdd rewind
/dev/hdd: Input/output error

What things should we check before suspecting bad hardware?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Ken Carr