Quick erase a tape

[smith_jones]

Hi,

Can you please tell me what happens after the quick erase of tapes? 

After the quick erase the media is showing in NONE robot type but before quick erase media was in TLD.

So please suggest how to make the media reusable? It did not ask for confirmation when clicked on quick erase button above activity monitor in 7.7.2

[sclind]

Perhaps the tape was still in the drive at the time you looked hence it might say none.  Make sure its back in a slot and reinventory the tapes.

What do you mean by reusable?  Undo the erase?  I dont think that can be done:

"Quick erase writes an indicator at the beginning of the media and the contents of the media are made inaccessible"

My system did ask for a confirmation when I just tried a quick erase. But we are 7.6.1.2

[RiaanBadenhorst]

You don't really need to erase media in NetBackup. Unless its for some security reason. If you want a tape to be made available (and not wait until its expired) you can expire it manually (with care).

Then your media will be available for use.

[smith_jones]

Hi,

I was just refreshig the tapes in the volume pools from the tab above activity monitor and in between that by mistake quick erase got clicked and this happened (no confirmation of quick erase).

So kindly tell how to make those tapes reusable so that I can use them for writing backups as normal.

[sclind]

If you've erased them then they should be usable now without any further action.

[smith_jones]

I did not get this -

We have 6 drives. 4 were busy at the time this happened. Only 2 drives were free.

6 tapes were selected in the volume pool when quick erase button got clicked by mistake.

Within mili second all the 6 tapes started showing in NONE robot type (before they were in TLD).

According to your statement ( which is logical in some cases) - 

"Perhaps the tape was still in the drive at the time you looked hence it might say none.  Make sure its back in a slot and reinventory the tapes."

How is this possible in my case? 6 tapes were quick erased and started showing in NONE robot type though only 2 drives were free. So it is clear that not all the tapes were moved from the library slots to drives, max only two could have been moved. I also ran inventory at the same time and those 6 tapes were still in NONE robot type.

[RiaanBadenhorst]

I think something else was going on, a quick or long erase would need to mount the media. And it wont put it to NONE (out of the robot).

The erase would not have worked if the media had not expired, so they were, and are ready for use. A quick way to get it back to a normal state would be to delete them, and then re-inventory.

[sclind]

Any chance they are in "Volume Pool" NONE rather than Robot Type NONE?

[mph999]

I'm with Riaan - a quick erase is simply a re-label, bplabel command to be exact.  Robot type NONE effectivly means NBU thinks the tape is not in the robot (it might be, or it might be in the CAP/ MAP).

To get it back, simply run an inventory, and tick the empty CAP/MAP option - don't think you will need to delete first, but it won't do any harm.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to then run another label on it and see if it does the same again, if so, that needs looking into.