topic Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely in Operating System - HP-UX

formatting tha DDS tape completely

Katsu39 — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:32:41 GMT

Hello all;

Would someboy tell me that how can I format the DDS tape completely.
Which mean from B.O.T to E.O.T.

"mediainit" can format only data area?

Sorry such a begginers question,

Thanks.

Katsu

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Mark Grant — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:35:09 GMT

You generally don't actually need to format the tape. Any particular reason why you want to in this case?

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Michael Schulte zur Sur — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:39:34 GMT

Hi,

why do you want to format the unused part?
You yould use:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rmt/"tape device" bs=1024 count=10000000
Use a device with no compression.

Michael

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

H.Merijn Brand (procura — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:45:30 GMT

# mknod /dev/zero c 3 0x00003

Overwrite the tape with zeros as follows:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rmt/0m

If you have to be absolutely sure, put a magnet on the tape for a day, or burn it

It's very easy to write a C program or a perl script to do the same as above. Maybe even better, by writing 0x55555555 first from BOT to EOT, then rewind and write 0xAAAAAAAA from bot to EOT, but the /dev/zero method is a whole lot easier

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Katsu39 — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 02:51:33 GMT

Hello Michael & Mark

Thank you for quickly replying.

We have a customer who has very very strict security rule for them data.

So,we have to elase all of the data on the tape completely.

dd is best way to elase those?

Thanks

Katsu

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Mark Grant — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:08:51 GMT

Nope, in this case, I would go for procura's solution above. A big magnet or a fire.

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Leif Halvarsson_2 — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:18:37 GMT

Hi,
If there is a large number of tapes dd will be rather slow. There is bulk erase equipment avilable on the market.

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Katsu39 — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:47:06 GMT

Thank you all;

Now we are trying the recommendation of Procura's one.

We know destroying the tape is best way,but I think ,we will not be able to do that.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Regards

Katsu

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

John Carr_2 — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 03:50:34 GMT

DDS tapes are cheap it may be an option to physically destroy the tapes and purchase new one rather than the amount of time loading tapes and destroying the existing data. The methods of writing to the tape are good but they are writing over the existing data not formatting the tape.

:-) John.

Re: formatting tha DDS tape completely

Katsu39 — Tue, 27 Jan 2004 23:25:23 GMT

Hi all;

The result was, 7 hours 10 minutes.
125m DDS3 Tpae in DDS3 Drive.

Oh great! I will be able to get enough sleep.

Thanks

Katsu