Super DLT wrong format, how to reformat

[Piet Timmers]

Hi,

A question from an OpenVMS system manager (so little unix knowledge).

I have a tape (SDLT) which is always used on a 160/320 GB SDLT drive. I want to use this tape in a 110/220 GB SDLT drive, how can I reformat this tape. ( OpenVMS command is INIT/DENS=)

Greetings,

Piet

[Ralf Puchner]

within OpenVMS you can mount tapes and so use it as a normal device. In unix you use your backup software to init the tape.

The format depend on the special device used(see "man mt" and "man tape") and the tool mt can be used to control and init the drive (but capacity depend on the used device file).

Have a look into the man-pages or admin guide for an detailed explanation.

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Piet,

According to doc the keywords for /dens= are :
SDLT=SuperDLT1
SDLT320=SuperDLT320
( http://h71000.www7.hp.com/doc/732FINAL/9996/9996pro_023.html#blue_117 )

Wim

[Piet Timmers]

Wim,

Thats on OpenVMS, but how on Tru64.

Piet

[Mohamed K Ahmed]

The new tape drives picks up the format automatically.
So all you need to do is take the tape, stick it in the 110/220 tape drive, format the tape or write an empty file to it.
The 160/320 tape will work on the 110/220 tape drive, but of course you only can write 110/220 G to it

you can use this command
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/ntape/tape0c

Mohamed

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Piet,

http://h30097.www3.hp.com/docs/patch/51A/bl21/ReleaseNotes.pdf and find sdlt320.

You need to setup the drive and thus the density is known (but I guess it must be possible to select a lower one too)

Wim
(not a Unix man but a Google one)

[Ralf Puchner]

Wim,

on unix systems the special devices files selects the density as written before....

[Wim Van den Wyngaert]

Ralf,

Thanks for the info. It is starting to come back. It has been 10 years since I used Unix.