BE 2012 How to erase tapes

[Gary_2]

Have just upgraded to BE 2012 .... OH BOY!!!!!!!

I am in a fairly simple enviorment where I have a HP Autoloader and use 1 tape per night, so each Monday I load up all the tape for the coming week. Under 2010 I had a batch file that I would run to erase all the tapes in the tape library.

I prefer to erase the tapes so that I know they will be used in the order in which I have placed them in the autoloader.

I have found the new Power Shell command Submit-BEEraseMediaJob, I issue the following command

Submit-BEEraseMediaJob -RoboticLibrarySlot 1

but it errors with

Submit-BEEraseMediaJob : Cannot bind parameter 'RoboticLibrarySlot'. Cannot con
vert value "1" to type "BackupExec.Management.CLI.BERoboticLibrarySlot". Error:
"Cannot process command because of one or more missing mandatory parameters: R
oboticLibraryDevice."

I am not at all familur with Powershell, can you please advise correct format for command.

Thanks.

[pkh · Accepted solution]

You would first have to get the slot object

Get-BERoboticLibraryDevice "<tape library>" | Get-BERoboticLibrarySlot 

This will then return all the slot objects in the library.  You would then have to select the correct slot object from this collection and feed it into the Submit-BEEraseMediaJob cmdlet

I prefer to erase the tapes so that I know they will be used in the order in which I have placed them in the autoloader.

You are managing your tapes rather than letting BE and the tape library manage the them for you.  This is inefficient and more time consuming.  You should let BE and the tape library manage your tape for you.  See my article

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/must-mondays-backup-be-monday-tape

[Gary_2]

Thanks for your help, with your point in the right direction I got it working with the following commands

Get-BERoboticLibraryDevice "HP Autoloader" | Get-BERoboticLibrarySlot "Slot 1" | Submit-BEEraseMediaJob -Confirm:$false | wait-BEJob

Get-BERoboticLibraryDevice "HP Autoloader" | Get-BERoboticLibrarySlot "Slot 2" | Submit-BEEraseMediaJob -Confirm:$false | wait-BEJob

etc

Thanks again.