Hi there.

Last weekend we upgraded our DLT4700 (single DLT4000, 7 slots) for a Brece-Hill Q2.15 (two DLT 7000, 15 slots). We're reusing the CompacTape IV cartridges, but the new drives seem to recognise the old tapes as being written by a DLT4000, and don't use the higher density that the DLT7000 is capable of.

Is there an easy way to re-initialise the tapes that'll allow us to use the maximum storage capacity?

Details follow:

First we check the status of the drive:

Checking pre-dump status with: rsh -n <filer> mt -f nrst0a status Tape drive: Digital DLT7000 Status: ready, write enabled Format: 85937 bpi 70 GB (w/comp) fileno = 0 blockno = 0 resid = 0

This implies that it'll use the high density we're after...

Then we do the dump

rsh -n <filer> dump 0ufbB urst0a,urst0a,urst0a,nrst0a 63 30000000 /

(Yes, I know the block count is low - we're trying to fix the problems without causing any EOT fun & games)

Now after the dump is done, we load the tape into the drive, which reports

A: Idle C 20.00G

This says to me that the tape is still recorded at the DLT4000 density, albeit with compression.

Any suggestions?

Cheers, Mike