Technical data

Managing Storage Media
9.5 Mounting Volumes
File-Structured and Foreign Volumes
Ordinarily, when you mount volumes, the system imposes a format on each
volume that allows you to read, write, create (or execute), and delete files. These
mounted volumes have the format of the OpenVMS operating system.
If you specify the /FOREIGN qualifier when you mount a volume, the system does
not impose a format on the media, and you cannot access the files on the mounted
volume. Use the /FOREIGN qualifier to mount volumes with formats of operating
system that are not OpenVMS or with private formats.
Because foreign volumes are not file-structured, you must access them as follows:
• Disks—sequentially or by logical block number
• Tapes—sequentially
At times, the Backup utility (BACKUP) requires you to mount volumes with the
/FOREIGN qualifier, when you restore an entire disk, for example. For details,
refer to the OpenVMS System Management Utilities Reference Manual.
How to Perform This Task
When mounting volumes, follow these steps:
1. Physically mount all disks and put them on line.
2. Enter the MOUNT command (which invokes the Mount utility), using the
following format:
MOUNT device-name volume-label logical-name
where:
device-name Specifies the physical device name or logical name of the device on
which the volume is to be mounted.
volume-label Specifies the label on the volume.
logical-name Defines a logical name to be associated with the device.
Once invoked, the Mount utility performs the following actions:
1. Allocates the device
2. Checks to see that the device is correctly loaded
3. Reads and verifies the volume identification
Using Qualifiers with the MOUNT Command
Under special conditions, you must add qualifiers to the MOUNT command; for
example:
• To mount a public volume, use the /SYSTEM qualifier with the DCL command
MOUNT using the following format:
MOUNT/SYSTEM device-name volume-label logical-name
• In an OpenVMS Cluster environment, also specify the /CLUSTER qualifier:
MOUNT/SYSTEM/CLUSTER device-name volume-label logical-name
Table 9–13 and Table 9–14 show, respectively, the qualifiers you can use when
you mount disks and tapes.
9–28 Managing Storage Media