Awesome Salvage, now you Geeks help me figure out what it is...

Incredulity aside, I saved this from the trashcan, or rather the salvage company that was cleaning up after us when we moved.

I know, I know, how could they and all that. Well, let's move right on beyond that.

I know it is a tape drive and I know it is a tape drive with 320GB capacity, and I know it has slide-in tape magazines and an auto-changer.

Here's a close up of the front panel. So, as I ask you to help me figure this thing out and make some use of it, I don't really need to be told that it is a Quantum SDLT320 tape drive, with magazines on the right and left. I know that. The magazines are also full of tapes so I don' t need to be told that I'm going to have to invest in tapes. I also have another 20 tapes or so that appear to be unused that I also salvaged.

Speaking of also-salvaged, I also have this server pictured below, which I have already installed Debian Etch on. I don't need so much help with it, except that I want it to talk to this tape drive.

I have plugged a cable from the tape drive into the server. Even if I can't get this tape drive to work, I am going to use this server as an image repository for my workstations. That is, I am going to keep drive images here that I burn with Acronis for deploying new workstations.

What I'd like to do, and what I am asking for your help with, is also making this into an Amanda server for backups of a few of my more critical production workstations..

Help.

My server doesn't seem to even see the tape drive, I find no mention of it in dmesg, so I'm thinking I am going to have to do some kernel hacking. Any ideas?

I have no money for this project, it is entirely corporate dumpster-diving.