mediainit error

[bill zhu]

I tried to format my tape using "mediainit", but always give me a I/O error. Could you tell me if there is another command can be used to format tape?

#mediainit -v /dev/rmt/0mn

[Ken Hubnik_2]

WHY are you doing this.

Note that it is unnecessary to format a DDS tape
before use unless the tape is being partitioned.
Unformatted DDS media does not require
initialization when used as a single partition
tape. Accessing partition 1 on a single-partition
tape produces an error. To change a two-partition
tape to single-partition, use mediainit with 0
specified as the size.

[Pete Randall]

Why would you want to initialize a tape? Just write to it.

As far as using mediainit for this purpose, the only mediainit option that supports tape is the -p option, used to partition a DDS tape into two logical volumes.



Pete

[bill zhu]

Thanks for your answer. The problem is there was another guy work on this before, but I can't find him anymore, there is no documents for this, I can't know if he create partitions on the tape. May be you can tell me how to check if the tape was partitioned before.
Thanks. I am not a HP guy at all.

[Pete Randall]

Use mediainit -p 0 /dev/rmt/0mn to change a two-partition tape to single-partition. If you get an error doing that, then you had a single partition tape to start with.


Pete