Removing All catalog Data from a Volume

You can delete all catalog data sets on a volume with the ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES command if, and only if, the volume is not managed by the Storage Management Subsystem. If the master catalog is specified as the entry name on the ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES command and the target volume is SMS-managed, the volume becomes unusable and you must recover the volume.

When the master catalog is specified, the ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES command deletes all catalog data sets from the specified volume, including any BCS or VVDS on the volume. If a BCS resides on a volume, first export the BCS before using ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES. You can then recover the catalog from the exported copy.

There are three reasons you might want to use ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES to perform catalog volume cleanup:

To recover all and only catalog data sets on a volume,
To delete a BCS on a volume with no VVDS, or
To delete a VVDS that you cannot connect to a BCS.

If you are trying to recover only selected catalog data sets, use the DELETE command instead of ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES.

If you are removing the catalog objects from a volume, use the DIAGNOSE command before and after ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES, to check for lost data or other problems. Use both the ICFCATALOG and VVDS parameters of DIAGNOSE.

Because ALTER REMOVEVOLUMES deletes VVDSs, any connections between a VVDS and BCSs on other volumes are broken. You can reconnect the VVDS to the BCSs using DEFINE RECATALOG. However, when a data set on the volume is accessed, the VVDS is recataloged in the appropriate BCS automatically. After the VVDS is removed, you can delete the VVDS's record from BCSs on other volumes using DELETE NOSCRATCH.