DFSMSrmm prevents physical WORM tapes from returning to scratch to prevent their misuse. If you inadvertently define a WORM tape as MASTER volume or a USER volume, you cannot scratch the volume after it has been used for input or output. You can change the status of a WORM tape to scratch status using one of these two techniques:

1. Use the RMM DELETEVOLUME volser FORCE command to delete the volume. Next, use the RMM ADDVOLUME volser STATUS(SCRATCH) command to add the volume to DFSMSrmm with the scratch status.
2. Use the RMM CHANGEVOLUME volser RELEASE(REPLACE) RETPD(1) command, followed by the RMM DELETEVOLUME volser RELEASE command, followed by the RMM CHANGEVOLUME volser CONFIRMRELEASE(REPLACE) command to set the release action for the volume to REPLACE and to clear information about the volume from the DFSMSrmm control data set. Optionally, use the RMM CHANGEVOLUME volser CONFIRMRELEASE(INIT) command to confirm that the volume is already labeled. Next, run DFSMSrmm expiration processing to set the volume to scratch status.