If you want to delete a tape you need to use:

bpexpdate -d 0 -m TAPEID

Not bplabel.

Justin.

On Fri, 13 Apr 2007, Szekely-Bencedi, Endre (Genworth, Contractor) wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>
> I've been having some problems with my backups since a week. I found
> this list googleing around, hope you can spare a few minutes to read
> this and maybe help me.
>
> I don't know much of backups really, I needed to start and handle media
> a few weeks ago. We usually have 12-15 tapes filled each day with
> backups, half of it goes ofsite with a month retention (including
> catalog tapes), half we keep here.... talking of daily backups of
> course.
> The guy before me showed me that sometimes tapes don't get deassigned
> after expiration; he told me roughly how to check for this and how to
> deassign/expire a tape manually.
> He also told me I should place old catalog tapes back to scratch pool.
>
> Now. As I started to understand more about netbackup, I realised we have
> lots of frozen tapes. Tapes that always get assigned but don't get
> written. I have turned on bptm log and noticed these are all old catalog
> tapes (googled the error message). The problem is, since we always put
> old catalog tapes back to scratch pool, the next day's catalog tape will
> be a random tape. So, we just end up with more and more catalog tapes
> that we cannot write on. I guess this was just a mistake noone noticed
> before...
>
> Anyway. I have unfrozen the tape and the next day it got frozen again.
> Then I have found some docs saying that if you want to recycle a catalog
> tape you need to relabel it. But, relabeling doesn't work for me...
> tried 2 methods so far:
>
> Z:\>bplabel -ev 000188 -d dlt
> Requested number of drives are not configured
>
> in the Activity Monitor I have:
>
> 12/04/2007 14:38:40 - begin Label
> 12/04/2007 14:38:40 - started process bplabel (976)
> 12/04/2007 14:38:40 - mounting 000188
> 12/04/2007 14:38:41 - Error bplabel(pid=976) Requested number of drives
> are not configured
> 12/04/2007 14:38:41 - end Label; elapsed time: 00:00:01
> error requesting media (tpreq)(98)
>
> Then I tried to relabel using the GUI:
> 12/04/2007 14:41:49 - begin Label
> 12/04/2007 14:41:49 - started process bplabel (77988)
> 12/04/2007 14:41:49 - mounting 000188
> 12/04/2007 14:42:39 - mounted; mount time: 00:00:50
> 12/04/2007 14:42:42 - expected media 000188; found NetBackup media
> 12/04/2007 14:42:42 - end Label; elapsed time: 00:00:53
> media manager found wrong tape in drive(93)
>
> Okay, I know sometimes you can get error if the media type is different
> - I am not even sure how to check what it is...
> For example I got this tape:
> C:\>vmquery -m 000200
> ========================================================================
> ========
> media ID:              000200
> media type:            1/2" cartridge tape 2 (14)
> barcode:               000200L2
> media description:     Added by Media Manager
> volume pool:           SCRATCH (3)
> robot type:            TLD - Tape Library DLT (8)
> robot number:          0
> robot slot:            9
> robot control host:    fileserver1.domain
> volume group:          00_000_TLD
> vault name:            ---
> vault sent date:       ---
> vault return date:     ---
> vault slot:            ---
> vault session id:      ---
> vault container id:    -
> created:               19/07/2005 17:35:25
> assigned:              ---
> last mounted:          13/04/2007 10:34:03
> first mount:           20/07/2005 10:21:40
> expiration date:       ---
> number of mounts:      65
> max mounts allowed:    ---
> ========================================================================
> ========
>
> This tape is one of the many I am keeping an eye on since the past days
> and can't get to write them. I also tried to delete it using 'vmdelete',
> hoped netbackup will forget about it but it didn't - at the next backup
> try the tape got frozen again because "it contains VERITAS NetBackup
> (tm) database backup data and cannot be used for backups."
>
> If you got any ideas, please don't hesitate to help me.
>
> Thanks,
> Endre
>
>