topic Re: erase a DLT tape in Operating System - HP-UX

erase a DLT tape

miki leon — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 13:10:43 GMT

Hi

i m looking for a command or a third party applic that can do a erase to a DLT cassete .

i saw that mediainit is for disk and DDS and i dont want to use dd command to erase the data .

please help

Re: erase a DLT tape

Robin Wakefield — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 13:15:39 GMT

Hi,

You could just say:

echo > /dev/rmt/0m

or do you want to actually wipe the whole tape from start to finish?

Rgds, Robin.

Re: erase a DLT tape

miki leon — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 13:27:52 GMT

yes , i need to erase all the data in the tape .

the reason for that it i need to use this tape
for applic that check it the tape is totalay erase from the start .

Re: erase a DLT tape

Vincent Farrugia — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 13:31:55 GMT

Hello,

You can degauss the tape if you want to make sure that no data is left in the tape. This link gives a link to a degaussing service, among other things:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/support_doc/lpg50141.html

HTH,
Vince

Re: erase a DLT tape

miki leon — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 15:30:48 GMT

nice doc but this is not what i m looking for .

i think that it cant be done , thanks

Re: erase a DLT tape

Sanjay_6 — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 19:17:04 GMT

Hi Miki,

There is no command to erase DLT tapes. Once you write something else on it, the old data on it is lost.

Try this link for more info,

http://us-support3.external.hp.com/cki/bin/doc.pl/sid=4a30976a0dfdaac4be/screen=ckiDisplayDocument?docId=200000053902924

Hope this helps.

Regds

Re: erase a DLT tape

Anthony deRito — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 19:31:32 GMT

The only way is to "degauss" the tape using an industrial strength magnet as mentioned before. If this is not a practical solution for you, then you have to write over your tape.

Perhaps it would help for you to explain your objective. You mentioned "check if the tape is totalay erased from the start." Can you elaborate on this?

Tony

Re: erase a DLT tape

Helen French — Mon, 10 Dec 2001 20:01:40 GMT

hey,

what about the 'mt' command? I have not tried this command in HPUX. But in Solaris, it does erase the media:
'mt rewind device_name'
'mt erase device_name'

2) You can degauss the media using the magnetic device.
3) I have Windows 2000 server which uses Veritas Backup Exec and it has a tool for erasing the media.

HTH,
Shiju