Hey, folks!  I've been combing thru the last several months of questions, 
and I see a LOT of questions about expiring, deleting, and erasing tapes. 
I've got to tell you.  After using NBU for several years, these get me all 
the time.  What I'd like to do is get a flowchart together on doing this stuff.

Could you take a quick look at the list below, and help me add questions 
and answers?


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1. I see tapes listed in available_media, but not in bpmedialist

Answer: only tapes with data on them are listed by bpmedialist

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2. bpexpdate/bpmedia/vmquery/vmdelete say "volume does not exist," even 
though I know it does.

# available_media | grep FROZ
BHC418 HCART    TLD      0       265    -       2     32922218 FROZEN

uhaul# bpexpdate -ev BHC418 -d 0
Are you SURE you want to delete BHC418 y/n (n)? y
requested media id was not found in NB media database and/or MM volume database

uhaul# bpmedia -unfreeze -ev BHC418
requested media id was not found in NB media database and/or MM volume database

uhaul# vmquery -m BHC418
Could not query by media ID BHC418: volume does not exist in database (35)

uhaul# vmquery -deassignbyid BHC418 1 0
Could not deassign media ID BHC418: volume does not exist in database (35)

uhaul# vmdelete -m BHC418
volume does not exist in database (35)

Answer: You've got another volume db on another host. Throw in the -h 
volumehost option.

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3. Can't delete/expire/move tape because it's assigned.

Answer: Use deassignbyid

uhaul# vmquery -deassignbyid BHC418 <db pool num> <status>

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3.5 Does the command above work on tapes that actually have data on them, 
or must I expire them, then delete them.

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4. How do I completely delete a regular netbackup tape?
    bpexpdate -ev volid -d 0
    bplabel it to be sure

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4.5 How do I completely delete a regular netbackup tape?
    vmquery -deassignbyid
    bplabel it to be sure.


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5. How to put a tape back in the scratch pool (or into any other pool)

    /usr/openv/volmgr/bin/vmchange -p 4 -m $vmediaid

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6. I've recently found out that I have multiple volume databases.  Can 
I/how do I merge them?



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W. Curtis Preston
Principal Consultant for Storage Designs, your storage experts
Webmaster: http://www.backupcentral.com Phone: 760 631 7991