Managing Media
Formatting Media
Chapter 4 111
TIP To format media used by other applications, use the Force Operation
option. Data Protector protected media cannot be re-formatted using this
option. You have to first remove the protection. See “Recycling Media” on
page 123 for more information.
What’s Next? Once you have formatted your media, you may use these media for
backup. See Chapter 5, “Backup,” on page 151 for more information on
how to configure backups.
Recognizing Other Data Formats
Recognized
Formats
To prevent accidental overwrite of data already written to the media,
Data Protector recognizes a number of different tape formats:
Table 4-1 Data Protector Media Format Categories
Media Format Data Protector Behavior
unknown or new Loose Policy: formatted and
used for backup only if the
global variable
InitOnLoosePolicy is set to 1
Strict Policy: not used for
backup
media written with compression,
now used without compression
media written without
compression, now used with
compression
foreign Data Protector (from
another cell)
not used for backup unless
imported or formatted with the
Force Operation option
tar, cpio, OmniStorage, OmniBack
I, ANSI label, filesystem
not used for backup unless
formatted with the Force
Operation option
Data Protector unprotected media used for backup
Data Protector protected media used for appending backups
