Sony SDT-S5000 Tape Drive

I have a tape device which runs off an internal Adaptec scsi card. OS = WinNT4_6a

Although the drivers, services etc. seem to be in order, any time I try to run a backup/restore I get an I/O error (hardware).
Old hardware makes finding any driver updates next to impossible. I’ve tried this device on three different servers to no avail. It was working fine +/- until a few weeks ago when the backup software strted reporting errors a little to often.

I’m pulling my hair out now since we haven’t had a good backup in days!

Any help is greatly appreciated.