Reusing bulk erased DLT tapes

[John Eaton]

I'm trying to use DLTIII tapes that were bulk erased, but with no success. When they're inserted into the drive (DLT7000 or DLT2000xt) the cleaning light comes on, and no density lights come on. When I try to write to the tape, with or without selecting the density manually, dd reports 'I/O error' (rc=2) and tar reports 'Tar: end of tape'. I've tried 5 different tapes with the same result. Leader inspection suggests they've been barely used, as I was told, so I don't believe they're all bad.
I cannot find any references to initializing, or if there is a need to, anywhere. I found references to 'mediainit', but it does not mention use with DLTs.
Can anyone help? Thank

[Helen French]

Hi,

Check this out:
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/0,,0xd741a22831ebd5118ff40090279cd0f9,00.html

HTH,
Shiju

[John Eaton]

Shiju,
Thanks for the response, but there's no mention of re-using them after they're erased. It's really about how to erase them.
I did find one tidbit at the Fugi website, according to the article writer the DLT drive will automatically reformat the tape when inserted into the drive, but then he also states that you have to issue a 'write from BOT' command to initialize it. My DLT7000 has no such command, only 'write from current position' and 'write filemark'. Not that I can issue them without writing a program to do it, anyway...
Still looking.
Joh

[John Eaton]

Seems I have a bad DLT7000. I tried the DLT2000 only once, and it acted 'funny' so I never tried it again.
I tried another DLT7000, and a DLT4000, and both worked fine. Seems it really does work the way the Fuji guy stated.
Thanks