There is no way to force marking a tape as free in the Data Protection Manager Console, though there is a Management Shell command called ForceFree-Tape.ps1 included.
The syntax is:
ForceFree-Tape.ps1 -DPMServerName <Name of server> -LibraryName <Name of library> -TapeLocation <slot numbers>
It all seems logic until you get to the slot number part. A simple "8" is not sufficient for the script to succeed. It needs to be "slot-8" for some reason. E.g:
ForceFree-Tape.ps1 -dpmservername dpm01 -libraryname "Hewlett Packard MSL G3 Series library (x64 based)" -tapelocationlist slot-8
After running the script you will get the following output:
Removing recovery point created at 11/24/2012 15:04:08 for tape in Slot-8.
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Datasource '\\?\Volume{a636a4d2-0a1a-11e1-8098-005056a50001}\' on computer file2.sweden.se:
Saturday, November 24, 2012 3:04:08 PM
Removing recovery point created at 11/24/2012 15:05:38 for tape in Slot-8.
The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Datasource '\\?\Volume{1d621814-ee9e-11e0-a1b4-005056a50001}\' on computer file2.sweden.se:
Saturday, November 24, 2012 3:05:38 PM
Setting tape in Slot-8 as free.
If it's a standalone drive, use the following command instead. You can find the tape name on the Management - Libraries view selection the drive and looking at the Details pane beneath.
ForceFree-Tape.ps1 -dpmservername dpm01 -libraryname "Hewlett Packard LTO Ultrium-2 drive" -tapelocationlist drive-\\.\Tape2147483646
Removing recovery point created at 04/13/2013 20:00:26 for tape in Drive-\\.\Tape2147483646. The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dep endencies on each other:
Datasource 'KDAcctDB' on computer app01.sweden.se:
Saturday, April 13, 2013 8:00:26 PM Removing recovery point created at 04/13/2013 20:00:09 for tape in Drive-\\.\Tape2147483646. The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Datasource 'AIS20080623121636' on computer app01.sweden.se: Saturday, April 13, 2013 8:00:09 PM Removing recovery point created at 04/13/2013 18:04:07 for tape in Drive-\\.\Tape2147483646. The operation will remove the following recovery point(s) because they have dependencies on each other:
Datasource '\\?\Volume{7b056282-96ea-11e2-93ec-00155d61d80d}\' on computer fs01.sweden.se: Saturday, April 13, 2013 6:04:07 PM Setting tape in Drive-\\.\Tape2147483646 as free.
