Guardian User's Guide

Using Labeled Tapes
Guardian User’s Guide—425266-001
10-22
Creating and Modifying Labeled Tapes
When a message of this type occurs, you should either accept or reject the request as
described under Responding to Tape Mount Requests on page 10-17.
If you accept an unknown tape, the system considers it to be an unlabeled tape. Use
caution and make sure that the tape does not have data written at a different density.
The system might consider a tape to be unknown if:
•
The tape was written at a density that the drive does not support.
•
The tape has never been used.
Example
This message can be sent as the result of an unknown tape having been mounted on the
tape drive named $TAPE:
Creating and Modifying Labeled Tapes
Use MEDIACOM to create either IBM or ANSI format labeled tapes. Using
MEDIACOM, you can also display information about a tape’s label, you can relabel a
tape, remove a tape’s label, and set whether labeled tapes are to be unloaded after being
labeled or relabeled.
Labeling Tapes
You can create ANSI-standard labeled tapes using the MEDIACOM ADD
TAPELABEL command. The MEDIACOM ADD TAPELABEL command, LABELS
IBM option, creates IBM-MVS standard labeled tapes.
Label a tape in ANSI or IBM format:
1. Manually write the intended label on the tape reel.
2. Log on as a super-group user (255,n).
3. Enter this MEDIACOM command:
MC> ADD TAPELABEL, vid | ( vid , vid1, vid2 ) , LABELS
IBM , TAPEDRIVE $tapedrive-name
The system opens the tape drive in BLP (bypass label processing) mode and
displays:
$TAPE: not ready:
4. Mount the tape on the selected tape drive.
$ZSVR: 0006 UNKNOWN TAPE ON $TAPE, ACCEPT OR
MOUNT CORRECT TAPE TO PROCEED
Caution. When you label a tape, all existing data on that tape becomes inaccessible. Before
you label a tape, check its contents with the MEDIACOM INFO TAPELABELS command. See
Displaying Tape Label Information
on page 10-24.