Technical data

Managing Storage Media
9.3 Initializing Volumes
9.3.1 Using the INITIALIZE Command
Use the DCL command INITIALIZE to format and write a label to the volume.
To initialize a disk or tape volume, enter the INITIALIZE command using the
following format:
INITIALIZE device-name[:] volume-label
where:
device-name Specifies the name of the device on which the volume is to be physically
mounted and then initialized. To prevent initializing another user’s
volume, allocate a device before you initialize the volume. (Prior
allocation is not required, however.)
volume-label Specifies the identification to be encoded on the volume. For a disk
volume, you can specify a maximum of 12 ANSI characters; for a
magnetic tape volume, you can specify a maxiumum of 6 alphanumeric
characters.
To initialize a public volume, you must specify the /SYSTEM qualifier with the
DCL command INITIALIZE:
INITIALIZE/SYSTEM device name[:] volume-label
For more details on INITIALIZE command format, refer to the OpenVMS DCL
Dictionary.
Examples
1.
$ INITIALIZE DUA2: TEMP
The command in this example initializes the disk volume DUA2: and labels
the volume TEMP.
2.
$ INITIALIZE MUB2: TEST
The command in this example initializes the tape volume on MUB2: and
labels the volume TEST.
The OpenVMS User’s Manual contains additional examples of the INITIALIZE
command.
9.3.2 Using INITIALIZE Command Qualifiers
Table 9–8 describes a number of qualifiers you can use with the INITIALIZE
command. Selecting appropriate values for these qualifiers and selecting the
appropriate position for the index file involve tradeoffs. The OpenVMS DCL
Dictionary contains more information about each qualifier.
Table 9–8 INITIALIZE Command Qualifiers
Qualifier Description
/CLUSTER_SIZE=
number-of-blocks
Specifies minimum allocation unit in blocks.
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9–18 Managing Storage Media