DLT IV Ansi Label

[MTSU_SAN]

Is there any easy way to initialize and put an ANSI label onto a new DLT IV tape--I've inherited a third party backup system, and our operators only know how to use another machine to label a DLT III tape. I'd really like to put more data on one tape!
I think I might be able to use mediainit, but it doesn't look like it from the man page.

[A. Clay Stephenson · Accepted solution]

Hi Jerry,

I've never seen a DLT backup program that needs labels, but here is my best guess (and it's only that):

I assume you have an old DLT III tape that already has a label. Insert it in the drive.
I'll assume your tape drive is 0m (you change to the correct value).



dd if=/dev/rmt/0mnb of=i/var/tmp/h1

Now remove the DLT III tape and insert the new tape
dd if=/var/tmp/h1 of=/dev/rmt/0mnb

Try that and good luck, Clay

[Bill Hassell]

There is nothing in HP-UX that will label tapes. ANSI standard labels (ASCII or EBCDIC) are mainframe concepts that didn't make itr into Unix. Labeling is only half the problem. ANSI laebls are all 80 characters long, with VOL, HDR labels the minimum needed. This can be done with a simple file and vi.

However, the data records will have to be formatted to match the labels. dd can do this as fixed record size with a blocking factor are the most common formats.