Thank you all for the help so far.
The tape is new, just bought yesterday. Imation Travan cartirdge. The drive is a HP T20 SCSI sequential device.
I ment 'engage the heads' by when i have put it in before, bam, starts working right away. This unfortunatley has not happened with this drive. I was told there may be a command to start it, tried but did not work
nsrjb -U (# of uses left) -S (slot#)

just said can not find nsrjb. so ya, again, lost : (

thank you for all your help,
Richard