HP DLTtape IV says it is write protected but it is not.

[CA1109200]

We were using the HP DLTtape IV on a Novell server and we no longer have that server but we have a W2K server that uses the same tapes. When we try to use the old tapes on the W2k server we get a message saying it is write protected but the tape is not physically write protected. Is there anyway to reuse these tapes.

[meloni]

Be aware that not all the formats od dlt drives are compatible even if the cartridge aare the same P/N
Do you use the same tape drive?

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/Document.jsp?objectID=lpg50139

[CA1109200]

No it is a different tape drive. One of the tapes from the old drive worked fine but the others say they are write protected. We are not trying to get anything off the tape we just want to re-use it. We did a format on the old tape drive on one of the tapes before we got rid of it and it still says it is write protected on the new drive.

[Rothery Harris]

Dear Tim,

IS your new drive a DLTVS80 model. If so it will flag the tapes as read only if they have been previously written on a DLT4000 tape drive. If this is so the only way to use the tape is to de-gauss them. You need a very high strength de-gaussing system for this. Companies like Vogon could do this for you.
It could be an alignment problem between drives if it is not a VS80 tape drive although normally this shows up as a failure to calibrate and the cleaning light comes on.

Rothery

[Rothery Harris · Accepted solution]

Please could you post the old and new tape model numbers. You have indicated that they are different drives.

[CA1109200]

The new tape drive is a DLTVS80. The old one is a HP SURESTORE DLT40

[meloni]

So if you read my previous message and followed the link you can see that a tape written by DLT4000 can just be read by a DLT1 drive.
As explained the footprint of the trace written by DLT4000 is bigger that the one of the DLT1 so he cannot remove all the trace even if you format the tape.
your only way to reuse these tape in aaDLT1 is to degauss them

[CA1109200]

Thanks to both of you. I guess I will buy new tapes.

[meloni]

Hi Tim,
If you found usefull this forum, we will be more than happy if you can assign some points ;)