DAT72 back up media

[melissaN]

I had a power outage not long ago and ever since I have had back up issues. I've got everything back on line and my only problem now is the media.

When I check in the morning the tape has been ejected as either "not recognizable format" "unable to overwrite" both of which is crazy as the same tapes are being used. They are all newer tapes, 6 months, and I have cleaned the drive.

I guess my question is, how do I format the tape so I can get a good back up?

[thomas rush]

It all depends on your backup application.
It may be that the tape was in the drive when things went kaput, and the backup application is preventing you from adding to the tape.

So ....

Make sure you have any necessary data copied off the tape in question. If these are your only backup tapes, a new piece of DAT media is not so expensive; I recommend you run one full backup to that tape before proceeding.

Then you'll need to load the problem tape in the drive, and run the application's format command. In Data Protector, you may need to
remove this particular tape from your storage pool if it is protected, in order for the format to succeed. Certainly use the "force" option.

[André Noordermeer]

Hi Melissa,
In addition to previous response, I once had this situation and needed to erase the tapes before I could format them. (ERASE FULL) command, details will vary with the actiual BU-software you use.
Reason was that an invalid block had been written at the time of the power glitch, format (in my software) did not rectify this.

[melissaN]

I did run an erase on the two tapes that were giving me a problem. Turns out this is an option on my backup software, go figure. So we now have 2 successful backups and I am feeling much better about this. Thanks for the responses.