topic Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT in Operating System - OpenVMS

UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

ChaimBu — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 02:45:49 GMT

I have to INIT some 100 tapes, and I would like to have to avoid manually unloading the tape after each INIT command.

How can I do this?

Thanks,

Chaim

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

John Abbott_2 — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 02:57:22 GMT

Hi, you could;

$ mount/for drive:
$ dismount/unload drive:

If you are using a media libary and have mru installed you can use the $robot commands to physically load & unload the tapes too !

Failing that, perhaps a $inquire and a loop back to give you time to physically take out and load the next tape (and of course check that the current one didn't fail it init!!)

Regards
John.

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

Karl Rohwedder — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 03:23:43 GMT

What about the old-fashioned SET MAGTAPE/UNLOAD?

regards kalle

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

Ian Miller. — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 03:52:56 GMT

MOUNT/FOR, DISMOUNT/UNLOAD appear to be the simplest.

SET MAGTAPE needs the tape to be mounted.

$ set mag/unload $1$mkb500:
%SET-E-NOTSET, error modifying $1$MKB500:
-SYSTEM-F-DEVNOTMOUNT, device is not mounted

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:24:55 GMT

Or use backup/rewind to init the tape.

Wim

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

ChaimBu — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:34:33 GMT

Actually the mount/dismount solution works quite well!

Would using BACKUP take longer or shorter or not significant?

Thanks,

Chaim

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

Wim Van den Wyngaert — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:39:44 GMT

Now :
init
mount/for
dism/unl

To be :
backup/rew login.com dev:sav/sav/rewind/dens=xxx (or whatever options you need)
dism/unl

Faster ? Could be.

Wim

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

ChaimBu — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 04:46:57 GMT

I don't want to actually backup any files! I am preparing these tapes to be scratch tapes for future backups!

Thanks,

Chaim

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

John Abbott_2 — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 05:45:51 GMT

Just incase you have a media library and MRU installed... here's a snip of code we've used for years, amended so as to not be site specific.. I hope!

$ ROBOT LOAD SLOT physical_slot DRIVE usually_0_or_1 ROBOT media_library(e.g. GKG0)
$ WAIT 00:01:30 ! mechanical load
$ INIT device: label
$ ROBOT UNLOAD DRIVE 0_or_1 SLOT returning_slot_from_load ROBOG media_library

You'll notice there's no mount/dismount commands as the ROBOT commands load/unload the media, and there's only the need to pay a visit to load/unload your media library :-) how lazy !

J.

Re: UNLOAD tape drive after INIT

ChaimBu — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 06:14:52 GMT

The bets and most elegant solution appears to to use the mount/dismount commands.

Works like a charm!

Thanks to all,

Chaim