Patent ID: 8576505

Claim:
A method of storing data on a tape medium in at least one data recording session employing a tape drive apparatus operable to record the data in accordance with a format specifying an unused area of the tape medium, the method comprising: determining whether the tape medium has previously been formatted by writing and reading test data to a test location in the unused area of the tape medium, formatting the tape medium according to the format, determining whether the unused area of the tape medium comprises a previously recorded tape medium identifier according to the format, the determining adapted to determine that the tape medium has not previously been formatted when the tape medium does not comprise mandatory content in the specified unused area and an error rate does not exceed a predefined threshold, and reading the previously recorded tape medium identifier from the unused area for re-use as the tape medium identifier when it is determined that the unused area of the tape medium comprises the previously recorded tape medium identifier, and recording the previously recorded tape medium identifier as the tape medium identifier, and recording a new tape medium identifier in the unused area of the tape medium, when it is determined that the unused area of the tape medium does not comprise the previously recorded tape medium identifier or when the tape medium has not previously been formatted, wherein the tape medium identifier uniquely identifies the tape medium from other tape media.