How to Format DAT tape on Siemens Hicom r. 9006.5 1

[onsitephoneguy]

How can I delete the used partitions on an existing DAT tape and reformat the tape for use in backing up a Hicom 300E r. 9006.5? I can read the tape that I have and have verified that it is good using another Unix machine, but when I list the tape using AMO dis-rtape, it shows that I have no free space in the data partition. I'll paste in the output below...

DIS-RTAPE:UBA;
H500: AMO RTAPE STARTED
H5:RTAPE STARTED
H3:
RESERVED TAPE DATA:
VOLNAME : <:A1D6A:TEST/TEST>
LANAME : <:UBA:>
H17:
DAT - TAPE / DEVICE QUALITY IS GOOD
FILES ON TAPE : 0
FREE SPACE IN DATA PARTITION : 0 % OR 0 MBYTE

DAT MEDIA INFO:

VOLUME NAME : <TEST/TEST>
BLOCK SIZE : <512>
MAXIMUM CATALOG SIZE : <2097152>
SIZE OF DATA PARTITION : <1048576>
SIZE OF CATALOG PARTITION : <2046820352>
FREE IN DATA PARTITION : <0>
FREE IN CATALOG PARTITION : <512>
NUMBER OF FILES IN CATALOG : <1>
SIZE OF ALL FILES : <0>
NUMBER DELETED FILES IN CATALOG : <1>
SIZE OF DELETED FILES : <0>
EOD IN DATA PARTITION : <512>
CREATE CATALOG POSSIBLE : YES

DAT QUALITY INFO:

CURRENT NUMBER OF GROUPS WRITTEN : <9>
CURRENT READ AFTER WRITE RETRIES : <1>
CURRENT NUMBER OF GROUPS READ : <139>
CURRENT ECC 3 RETRIES : <0>
PREVIOUS NUMBER OF GROUPS WRITTEN : <1048>
PREVIOUS READ AFTER WRITE RETRIES : <0>
PREVIOUS NUMBER OF GROUPS READ : <0>
PREVIOUS ECC 3 RETRIES : <0>
TOTAL NUMBER OF GROUPS WRITTEN : <1057>
TOTAL READ AFTER WRITE RETRIES : <1>
TOTAL NUMBER OF GROUPS READ : <139>
TOTAL ECC 3 RETRIES : <0>
LOAD COUNT : <2>


RTAPE FINISHED
STATUS = H'0000
AMO-RTAPE-111 RESERVATION OF TAPE
DISPLAY COMPLETED;


Thanks,

Joe

 

[hotwalker57]

There is no need to delete the old data (yes there is a way), but once you start a new backup the system will preform an INIT of the tape before starting a new backup. Use the UNIX BACKUP/RESTORE feature.

 

[onsitephoneguy]

It ended up being a bad dat drive. We went through 3 drives before we got a working one!

 

[donb01]

I have a LOT of problems with 9006 tape drives. The tech usually recommends the best course of action to keep them running is to "clean the piss out of them".

I generally use a Sony cleaning tape and clean the drives every time I rotate the backup tape. Our systems are fairly stable as far as moves and changes go so I usually only rotate the tapes once a month.

If you start having trouble with one of them - clean it 4 or 5 times before writing it off (unless it chews up the tape - then forget it).

 

[donb01]

Incidentally, if you do want to reformat a tape, or format new ones you can use

STA-TINIT to do that

use something like (include quotes if not using EMML) "T:BACKUP/072506" as your tape or device name. for ANS use Y.

It will come back and ask you if the tape in the drive is the one you want reformatted. Make sure the ANS parameter is set to Y (may have to hit F10 if using EMML to get there) and then press F3 again to go.

If not using EMML then just type Y to the question and hit Enter.