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From: tencati@JPL-VLSI.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Subject: Magtape Volume sets on VMS V4.x
Message-ID: <8510040252.AA26974@UCB-VAX.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 3-Oct-85 19:09:08 EDT
Article-I.D.: UCB-VAX.8510040252.AA26974
Posted: Thu Oct  3 19:09:08 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 5-Oct-85 03:07:30 EDT
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.ARPA
Reply-To: info-vax@ucb-vax.arpa
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 35


 A colleague of mine on another computer system asked me to forward the 
following problem about magnetic tape ACPs under VMS V4.x.  If anyone can 
help out, I would appreciate it.


>   In Version 3.x of the VMS operating system, if you wanted to write 
> (or read) a volume set of magnetic tapes, it was basically your respon-
> sibility to initialize the volume set prior to it's use.  For example, if
> you wanted to write one large file out onto three tapes, those three tapes
> must have been initialized as a volume set and mounted as a volume set. 
> If, after writing on the third tape, you realized it was going to take four
> tapes, you were out of luck, VMS couldn't initialize the fourth tape with
 tape with
> a pending write request.
> 
>   A new feature of VMS version 4.0 is that the magnetic tape ACP will
> automatically ask the operator to mount a relative volume n+1 if it
> hits the EOT mark and there is a pending write (or read) request.  Thus,
> you no longer have to create and mount a volume set, VMS will create it
> for you as you go along.
> 
>   The problem I am encountering is that after the first tape is written,
> an operator request goes to the console which says "Please mount relative
> volume 2 (VOLNAM) on device x".  At that point, no matter what tape is
> mounted on the drive, it will not recognize it as relative volume 2.
> I have tried a blank tape and the REPLY/BLANK_TAPE= reply, I have tried
> a scratch tape and the REPLY/INITIALIZE= reply, and I have tried initializing
> the volume myself to the label it is looking for and using the REPLY/TO=
> reply,  none of these approaches has worked.

I will pass along any input I receive.  Thanks in advance.

Ron Tencati
JPL-VLSI.ARPA