If Networker can't read the label I don't think will accept the tape.
When you relabel a tape it basically puts an EOT (End of Tape) marker
right after the newly written label and most normal tape drives won't
read past that mark.  I've heard others talk about using some tape
control program like "mt" (a Unix tape control utility) to forward the
tape past the EOT or bad section but have no experience with that
myself.

Dave Werth
Garmin AT, Inc.
Salem, Oregon
-----Original Message-----
From: EMC NetWorker discussion [mailto:NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU] On
Behalf Of Len Philpot
Sent: Friday, May 01, 2009 2:46 PM
To: NETWORKER AT LISTSERV.TEMPLE DOT EDU
Subject: [Networker] Discoverability of backups... ?

I have scanned in old tapes, long past both their browse and retention
policies and recovered data from them. However, I've never tried to scan

in an expired and relabeled tape. My understanding is that relabeling
simply rewrites the label header on the tape and doesn't overwrite nor
erase the entire tape (indeed, such a procedure would take three
forevers
if that was the case).

To scan in a relabeled tape, you would of course have to first delete it

from the database, but would any of the data on it be discoverable by
Networker or would it scan in as a blank tape?

Thanks.

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