This is from a post I made last year, hope it helps.

"Ok, this is to everyone still having trouble with the backupset
delete/expire problems.

This is information form Tivoli tech support, so don't shoot the messenger.

It is true that this was a bug in TSM 4.1.2, it seems that if you created a
backupset and it passed its expiration date, the volume that the set was on
could not or would not be able to be reclaimed as scratch. An addition of
the delete volhist type=backupset command was added but undocumented in
4.1.3, and the fix was implemented in 4.2 to remedy the problem.

The problem I was having was the undocumented feature of delete volhist was
returning an unknown volume error when I tried to run it.

The solution was as follow from Tivoli tech support:

delete volhist type=backupset todate=(the day after the backupset was
created) totime=(the same time) volume=(volumename in all CAPS) force=yes

The key was the all caps in volume=, (the volume parameter is case
sensitive)  I omitted the totime and was still successful.

Hope this helps."

Mark B.

-----Original Message-----
From: Coats, Jack [mailto:Jack.Coats AT BANKSTERLING DOT COM]
Sent: Monday, September 16, 2002 10:48 AM
To: ADSM-L AT VM.MARIST DOT EDU
Subject: Deleting Backupsets - Recovering the tapes


TSM 4.1.3 on NT4 with IBM library with LTO drives

When I do a 'q libv' my listing shows two tapes

Library Name Volume Name Status         Owner        Last Use  Home Element
------------ ----------- ---------- ---------- --------- ------------
[snip]
LB6.0.0.1        175ACBL1        Private                     BackupSet 4,111

[snip]
LB6.0.0.1        191ACBL1        Private                   BackupSet 4,107
[snip]

I use the GUI to delete any existing backup sets, and it says there are
none.  It generated the following messages:

09/16/2002 10:31:00   ANR2017I Administrator ADMIN issued command: DELETE

                       BACKUPSET * * BEGINDATE=01/01/2001 BEGINTIME=NOW

                       ENDDATE=09/16/2002 ENDTIME=NOW PREVIEW=NO

09/16/2002 10:31:56   ANR2034E DELETE BACKUPSET: No match found using this

                       criteria.

How can I get these back into my scratch pool?
How could I find out what is on each of these tapes (what backup set)?

Currently when I do a Q BACKUPSET I get
ANR2034E QUERY BACKUPSET: No match found using this criteria.
message.

I am thinking about doing backupsets for our DR efforts and these are
remnants from some testing I was trying to do.

TIA... Suggestions?