CA1 recovering tapes marked scratched in an IBM ATL/VTS

Products

• CA 1 Flexible Storage
• CA 1 Tape Management - Copycat Utility
• CA 1 Tape Management - Add-On Options

Issue/Introduction

We are currently running CA1 r14.0 (Z/OS) and we are using an IBM TS7720 virtual tape library to store the tapes. There must be an interface from CA1 to the TS7720 tape library to tell the TS7720 tape library the tape has been changed from private to scratch status? There is a feature on the TS7700 where you can keep scratch tapes and don't delete the tapes in the TS7720 for "X" number of days. I guess somehow the data could be marked back to private. Any idea if there would be anyway a scratched tape that has been held for 3 days in the TS7720 could ever be changed from scratch back to private in CA1, even if the data was retained in the TS7720 tape library?

Environment

Release:
Component: 1

Resolution

To rescue a tape in the TS7720 or other IBM VTS, you can go into CA 1 ISPF panels and change the EXPDT of the tape to something in the future (unscratch the tape), and then run the CTSSYNC program to sync the specific tape. As long as the tape has not been reused or released by the VTS this should work.  The control statement for CTSSYNC would be SYNC,vvvvvv and the JCL for the program can be found in the CTAPJCL library in member CTSJSYNC.