Formatting Tapes?

[furious5]

At the moment our site doesn't have any real backup policy, I have recently taken over these duties from another guy.

Obviously I am aware this is a major problem at the moment so I got everything set up to backup last night. But looking at the server log the backup failed, I think this was due to me setting the media type as new media hence it was looking for unlabelled media.

I've put a request in for more media, but at the moment we are backing up on a set of 4 tapes.

All the tapes are mixed up and I don't know which is which. Basically I want to start from scratch but need an interim measure until we get the new media delivered.

Can anyone advise me how I can go about formatting a tape in Windows 2000 server so it will recognise the tape as new media?

 

[calcamco]

Format will depend on what backup software you are using. If you are using w2k backup the you should not have a problem on overwriting a tape. Veritas and ArcServe have settings which will allow you to select ovewrite media, and other than an annoying popup box stating the volume will be overwritten, the backup will proceed. Veritas also has options to erase and format media, although I have had difficulties utilizing a Dlt4 tape utilized on a Sun Server in an NT\2000 system, the tape will not even stay in the drive long enough to attempt the format option in Veritas.

Provide more information about what software you are using.

calcamco

 

[furious5]

I'm using Win2K backup

I have now resolved the problem though, cheers for taking the time to reply