RE-using tapes

[Dave Funnell]

We have a DLT 80 Drive and a Storageworks VS 80 Drive. We want to re-use tapes created by the DLT 80 on the VS80. Tapes have been created by Backup Exec. When we try and use them we get Media Error, put them back into DLT 80 and all is well. Veritas say it is the way the tapes work ? Any ideas welcome.

Thanks

[Lewis Finch]

these tapes are noy compatible with the VS80 tape drive even though they are the same type. The format created by the DLT80 is different. The only way to make them work is to have them professionally degaussed (demagnetized). At best this is expensive, at worst it will shorten the life of the tape and they may not work any way. Best to just buy new tapes for your VS 80 drive.

[CA393246]

I had a similar experience with OmniBack.

If I did a format on a tape with a DLT8000 drive, that tape could not be read by a DLT4000 drive. Which was to be expected. However, if I put that tape in a DLT4000 it flagged the drive as needing to be cleaned.

To get around that I wrote something to the tape using tar. This overwrites the header records which has the format information. Did not need to overwrite the entire tape.

Once I overwrote the header OmniBack did not recognize it as an OmniBack media element. It was just another tape.

I also needed to delete that tape from the OmniBack database to keep it clean. The next time I would format that tape it had a new media ID and was in essence a new tape.

[Nigel Daffurn]

You will never be able to write to media that has previously used in a DLT80. The reason for this is that the write current of a VS80 is lower than that of a DLT80, which means that the VS80 cannot erase the previously written data.