You can run in to this same situation if you do not have the correct TYPE of tapes checked in to the library. If the media doesn't match the drives. I have a client that uses SDLT drives and some of their older labels check in as an incompatible type for the drive, BUT it still checks them in as scratch. Make sure that the scratch tapes are the correct type of tapes for your drive models.
A select command I like to use to find these "limbo" tapes is: Select volume_name from libvolumes where status='Scratch' and last_use is NULL If you get uninitialized tapes and your library is not setup with AUTOLABEL=YES/OVERWRITE, then these tapes will be changed to Private status with no Last Use. Also if the tape is write protected. TSM issues a message and marks the tapes Private. And unless you're checking for these specific messages in TOR for example, you won't catch them. You can get tapes as Private with no last Use that are good. Like if you checkin a storage pool volume it has a null Last Use until it's used again. -----Original Message----- From: ADSM: Dist Stor Manager [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Richard Sims Sent: Monday, January 15, 2007 10:52 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Emergency help:ANR1405W even w/ plenty of scratch tapes John - I would start by issuing: SELECT LIBRARY_NAME as "Library", Char(VOLUME_NAME,11) as "Scratch Tapes" From LIBVOLUMES Where STATUS='Scratch' You don't say what kind off library you have, but if a 3494, then also use the 'mtlib' OS command to verify that there are volumes in Scratch state, per your assigned Category Code. If the number is small, you might see if you have a pile-up of volumes in Pending state. For good measure, query your paths and drives to assure that all are online, and in good working order. (Particularly, that no scratch tapes are stuck in defunct drives.) You performed a TSM restart yesterday: You thus have the convenient ability to inspect the Activity Log for the message coming out of the restart, which will reveal anomalies in tape states as TSM interacts with the library to check its volumes. Sixteen scratch tapes doesn't give you much of a margin in case things go wrong, or if there is a demand surge, however, so you're living near the edge. I periodically do a full inspection query of all the volumes in the library, to assure that all are productive as storage pool volumes, dbbackup volumes, or scratches: some can "fall through the cracks" and end up in unused limbo. Richard Sims
