Hello

The "mt -f /dev/rmt/0m erase" approach would command the drive to erase the tape
by writing nulls to the tape.   With DLT's this may take hours as it'll run till
the end of the tape, with AIT2's it takes 12 seconds because it will only write
out 300 nulls and then call it erased (if you flip a bit in the Command Data
Block it'll go to the end of partition but I haven't figured out how to flip
that bit).

If you don't care about somebody pulling out the mag tape developing solution
and visually decoding your data from the tape and just want everything to think
the tape is erased, just write out an eof mark on the tape ie.: "mt -f
/dev/rmt/0m weof" mind you write it at the beginning of the tape not at the end
;)

Regards,
John I Wang
Sr. Systems Engineer
Steverson Information Professionals

---
Enron Networks
Enron Building room 3427e
ph (713) 345-4888
cell (832) 493-1263
fax (713) 646-8462
pg pagejwang AT skytel DOT com or 1-877-390-4155





|--------+----------------------->
|        |          [email protected]|
|        |          a            |
|        |                       |
|        |          08/29/01     |
|        |          04:35 PM     |
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  >---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
  |                                                                           |
  |       To:     DDobbs AT mutualmaterials DOT com                             
     |
  |       cc:     veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu, (bcc: John          
     |
  |       Wang/Contractor/Enron Communications)                               |
  |       Subject:     RE: [Veritas-bu] 'header' problems with used tapes     |
  >---------------------------------------------------------------------------|



> -----Original Message-----
> I tried a 'echo > /dev/rmt/0m' on another box that had a
> standalone drive, and that wasn't good enough.
>
> What would the preferred syntax be?

'mt' often has an 'erase' option, but this can take awhile.

Something more meaningful coult be (I've used this on occasion to ensure a
header was nuked)

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rmt/0m bs=1024 count=1024

If your drive has compression, you may want to use /dev/random (if it
exists), or maybe a file large enough (I use a meg to be thorough)...

Jason
_______________________________________________
Veritas-bu maillist  -  Veritas-bu AT mailman.eng.auburn DOT edu
http://mailman.eng.auburn.edu/mailman/listinfo/veritas-bu






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