Ultrium LTO 200

[RON CANTOR]

I have 11 Ultrium LTO 200 tapes and all worked originally. We changed some settings on two tapes so that one was a scratch tape and the other was called "vacation set" so that the tape would NOT eject daily, but only append. This was set up for a vacation where there would be no one to swap out the tapes each day.
These two tapes have never worked since then and my IT guy says the tapes are bad but I don't believe that.
I want to reformat or format or erase the two "bad" tapes and try again to do a daily backup on them.. Does HP or MS have a built in software program to erase tapes? I am running Backup Exec 12.5 and Win Server 2007

[Curtis Ballard]

Use HP Library and Tape Tools:
http://www.hp.com/support/tapetools

Select your drive and then select the "Utility" menu and you will find "Tape Erase" in the "Utility Group" selection.

If you select "Options" you can choose a Quick, Full, or Secure erase.

[RON CANTOR]

Thank you
I will try this later this evening. Can you answer a related question? Once erased do the tapes need to be formated for the drive to be used again, or will that happen automatically?
Another? If the tapes were not recognized before, once erased will they be recognizable?
Ron