[Info-vax] Delete a file from a tape?

[Michael Kraemer]

Richard B. Gilbert schrieb:
> Christoph Gartmann wrote:
> 
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a tape with a few files (backup savesets). The last file on 
>> tape is
>> an incomplete saveset. Thus, I would like to delete this last file 
>> from the
>> tape. But OpenVMS 7.3-2 lists the file, asks for confirmation to 
>> delete and
>> finally refuses to do so. My next attempt was to recreate the saveset in
>> question via BACKUP with /REPLACE. Here I got:
>>
>> %BACKUP-F-POSITERR, error positioning MKB200:[000000]13OCT09MAC358.BCK;
>> -SYSTEM-F-OPINCOMPL, operation is incomplete
>>
>> Thus, how do I get rid of the incomplete saveset on tape without loosing
>> the previous savesets? Do I need to copy the contents of the tape to 
>> disk,
>> delete the incomplete file, initialize the tape and copy back the rest?
>>
>> Regards,
>>    Christoph Gartmann
>>
> 
> There IS NO SUCH OPERATION as "DELETE" on a tape.

If it's an ANSI label tape and one places an additional file mark
after the second last file, the last file will be deleted, sort of.