Reinitializing a Volume Before a Dump

By default, each dump is appended to the tape following the last end-of-tape mark.

Tape volumes are not reinitialized, allowing you to dump multiple databases to a single volume. You can append new dumps only to the last volume of a multivolume dump.

Use the init option to overwrite any existing contents of the tape. If you specify init, the Backup Server reinitializes the tape without checking for:

ANSI access restrictions
Files that have not yet expired
Non-SAP data

The default, noinit, checks for all three conditions and sends a volume change prompt if any are present.

The following example initializes two devices, overwriting the existing contents with the new transaction log dumps:

dump transaction pubs2
    to "/dev/nrmt0"
    stripe on "/dev/nrmt1"
    with init

You can also use the init option to overwrite an existing file, if you are dumping a database to an operating system file. This is a Windows example:

dump transaction pubs2
    to "d:\backups\backup1.dat"
    stripe on "d:\backups\backup2.dat"
    with init

See the Reference Manual: Commands for a description of dumping multiple databases to a single volume.