METHOD FOR FORMATTING MAGNETIC TAPE VOLUME

摘要

PURPOSE: To perform loading or unloading without completely rewinding a tape by formatting the tape over multiple system zones instructed by a host computer over the full length of the tape. CONSTITUTION: A load operation (LOZ) 3 is used during the loading and unloading of the tape from a peripheral recorder. Volume format information(VFI) 5 is a sector containing information concerning data volume format. When the system zone is formatted, at the same time, the magnetic tape is formatted at plural blocks as well. This process is started by a prompt from a software for control for the peripheral recorder, which requests the number and length of blocks to be formatted on the magnetic tape, to a host computer system.