formatting tha DDS tape completely

[Katsu39]

Hello all;

Would someboy tell me that how can I format the DDS tape completely.
Which mean from B.O.T to E.O.T.

"mediainit" can format only data area?

Sorry such a begginers question,

Thanks.

Katsu

[Mark Grant]

You generally don't actually need to format the tape. Any particular reason why you want to in this case?

[Michael Schulte zur Sur]

Hi,

why do you want to format the unused part?
You yould use:
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rmt/"tape device" bs=1024 count=10000000
Use a device with no compression.

Michael

[H.Merijn Brand (procura · Accepted solution]

# mknod /dev/zero c 3 0x00003

Overwrite the tape with zeros as follows:

# dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rmt/0m

If you have to be absolutely sure, put a magnet on the tape for a day, or burn it

It's very easy to write a C program or a perl script to do the same as above. Maybe even better, by writing 0x55555555 first from BOT to EOT, then rewind and write 0xAAAAAAAA from bot to EOT, but the /dev/zero method is a whole lot easier

Enjoy, Have FUN! H.Merijn

[Katsu39]

Hello Michael & Mark

Thank you for quickly replying.

We have a customer who has very very strict security rule for them data.

So,we have to elase all of the data on the tape completely.

dd is best way to elase those?

Thanks

Katsu

[Mark Grant]

Nope, in this case, I would go for procura's solution above. A big magnet or a fire.

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,
If there is a large number of tapes dd will be rather slow. There is bulk erase equipment avilable on the market.

[Katsu39]

Thank you all;

Now we are trying the recommendation of Procura's one.

We know destroying the tape is best way,but I think ,we will not be able to do that.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Regards

Katsu

[John Carr_2]

DDS tapes are cheap it may be an option to physically destroy the tapes and purchase new one rather than the amount of time loading tapes and destroying the existing data. The methods of writing to the tape are good but they are writing over the existing data not formatting the tape.

:-) John.

[Katsu39]

Hi all;

The result was, 7 hours 10 minutes.
125m DDS3 Tpae in DDS3 Drive.

Oh great! I will be able to get enough sleep.

Thanks

Katsu