Tape Drive keeps switching to Storage Slot

[NetLib]

I am trying out the evaluation version of FileStreamer on Windows 2003 Server. I am trying to emulate a virtual tape drive to a file. When I add a media for the first time after installing FileStreamer I can add it as a Tape Drive. After that, whenever I reload the media or add a new media it keeps switching it back to a Storage Slot and the backup software does not recognize that a tape is mounted. Is there some secret trick to reliably adding a virtual tape drive? Thanks.

[jsf]

What backup software are you using? As far as I understood, you are trying to load a medium into a tape drive as opposed to a storage slot. That's fine. Could you explain in detail what you meant by "whenever I reload the media or add a new media it keeps switching it back to a Storage Slot"? Describe what you do, and what happens, exactly, step by step.

According to Basic Concepts, "applying a media layout always replaces all currently loaded media with the new media. At the same time, Firestreamer attempts to match the currently loaded media to the new media. If a matching medium is found, then its state is preserved. For example, if a matching medium was in a tape drive, it would remain there, and if a tape operation was being performed on the medium, the operation would not be affected".

The above means that if say c:\tape1.fsrm was in a storage slot, and the new media layout contains c:\tape1.fsrm in an unnumbered tape drive, then the medium will stay in the storage slot where it was before the new layout was applied. There are two ways of forcing a particular location for a medium: 1) Always perform "Unload All" before applying a new media layout, or 2) Use specific numbers for the tape drives and storage slots in your media layout.