Solaris Driver Issue

I have a Solaris (version 10) server that I am trying to configure LTO drives on for a Storage Agent. My problem is that I ran the procedure to assign the drives to the IBMtape driver but doc state a reboot is needed. Has anyone done a successful modunload/modload of the IBMtape driver thereby avoiding a reboot? The server is a production box and the DB takes 45 minutes to take down and come back up so reboots are usually scheduled and the next one is weeks off. Any ideas or help is appreciated.