Summary
The DPX utility Tapedump can be used to validate the volser. This can be useful if you suspect that there is an error reading the tape.
Symptoms
The following error codes may indicate a corrupted label:
rc=1118 MS_TMM_NLTAPE_AND_VOLSER_EXIST
EXPLANATION: The tape in the drive had no label, but the requested tape volser exists in the database.
rc=1119 MS_TMM_NL_TAPE_REJECT
EXPLANATION: The unlabeled tape in the drive was rejected by the job.
rc=1164 MS_TMM_READ_ERROR_VOL1
EXPLANATION: The tape mount manager encountered an error while reading the tape volume. This may be caused by attempting to read the label from an unlabeled tape.
Resolution
Since library control functions are not available from within the Tapedump utility, the tape must be loaded in the tape drive prior to issuing tapedump commands. Load the tape by any means: either by using the DPX management console or manually from the library operator panel. You will also need to know the device id of the tape drive. You can find the correct device id in the DPX Edit Device window or the DPX Device Report.
1. Launch tapedump on the device server:
On Windows, open a DPX cmd prompt and type "tapedump"
On Linux/UNIX, navigate to the directory where tapedump is located (/opt/DPX/bin) and
issue ./tapedump
2. Issue the appropriate operating system dependent "tape" command as follows:
On Windows, the device id format is: tape \\.\tape0
On Linux/UNIX, a device id example is: tape /dev/nrst0
open rdwr (opens read/write) rewind
rewind
read
read
read
quit
3. Locate the file "tape.out" in the current working directory, open with a simple text editor
such as notepad.
On a properly initialized tape, the first line in the tape.out file is:
*** Block ( 80 ) *****
immediately followed by a line containing "VOL1<volser>" where <volser is the tape volser>,
for example:
*** Block ( 80 ) *****564F4C31 41433033 34342020 20202020 VOL1AC0344
In the above example, the tape's volser is "AC0344".
If the string "VOL1" is not found after **** Block ( 80 ) *****, then the tape requires relabeling before a tape can be used again.