How tu re-use old DLT tape on a VAX ?

[Gilles Salvin]

Hello ,

New to vax admin...

I've a very old vax with a DLT TZxx
I've a lot of old DLT tapes previously used on unix systems.
I would like to reformat (init) for use on the vax but no way.
The vax only accept blank tapes or previoulsy vax formatted tapes.

When I load a old tape; the TZ seems to be looking for a specific header(blank or Vms) and never stop searching for it.

Any help appreciated
Thank.

[Joseph Huber_1]

Maybe the difference is in "very old" vs. "old":
Loading of the cartrige has nothing to do with the content i.e. wether it was software formatted by whatever.

If the drive is unable to load the tape, then the cartrige is incompatible with the drive. Check the particular drive model against the cartrige type: DLT-III, DLT-IV.,...

Once a tape is successfully loaded, VMS can initialize the tape as a VMS volume even if it was unformatted or "Unix" formatted.

[Joseph Huber_1]

From somwhere a wether came for whether :-)

[Jan van den Ende]

Gilles,

It may well be that Joseph gave the full answer.
However, I do recall way back in the time of TK50 and TK70 that those WERE incompatible, once INITed.
We used to rub them with a fairly strong bar magnet, after which they could be reused, also for the other format.

Never did that to DLTs, however. So, no guarantee, but maybe worth a try?

fwiw

Proost.

Have one on me.

jpe

[Gilles Salvin]

Thank you for your help :o)

VAX 4000/300
DLT TZ88
OS VMS 5.5-2

Tapes DLT IV (40/80Gb)
With new tape DLT IV it works fine.

When I try
allocate MKA100
INIT MKA100: label
answer is : not a blank tape

is there a init/force "like" option please ?

[Joseph Huber_1]

So in fact it is loading, and the error happens when VMS tries to write.
Now I don't know the particular drive models, but the VMS driver tells You the cartrige can't be written in that density, only READ.

But You have a version of VMS which maybe does not support the DLT drive at all, so it misinterprets the density. I remeber 5.5-2 in a time when only DEC TK70 where available, no later DLTs.

I think You should be able to MOUNT/FOREIGN/NOWRITE the tape, then
do a SHOW DEVICE/FULL of the drive to see what VMS thinks the tape/drive is.

[marsh_1]

hi,

try init/over=exp

hth

[marsh_1]

...or even init/over=(access,exp)

fwiw

[Gilles Salvin]

Joseph

Gedeon > MOUNT/FOREIGN/NOWRITE G$DLT
%MOUNT-F-FILACCERR, magnetic tape file access is nonblank

Gedeon > show dev/full g$DLT

Magtape GEDEON$MKA100:, device type (Generic SCSI tape), is online, record-
oriented device, file-oriented device, error logging is enabled, controller
supports compaction (compaction disabled).

Error count 2 Operations completed 18437240
Owner process "" Owner UIC [0,0]
Owner process ID 00000000 Dev Prot S:RWED,O:RWED,G:RWED,W:RWED
Reference count 0 Default buffer size 512
Density unknown Format Normal-11

Volume status: no-unload on dismount, beginning-of-tape, odd parity.

[Joseph Huber_1]

The system (device driver) can't determine the drive model, just sees a generic SCSI drive.
So as far I see You can only use new cartriges or cartriges written in the "default" density of the drive.
So You really should upgrade VMS version to make full use of much newer hardware.