Nonstandard labels are labels that do not conform to the formats described in this manual. If you want to retrieve the data set and process the nonstandard labels, you must write nonstandard label processing routines and insert them into the operating system. The procedure is described under Nonstandard labels.

If you want to ignore the nonstandard labels, you can retrieve the data set by treating the volume as an unlabeled tape. Use the data set sequence number in the DD statement to bypass the labels and position the tape to the data set.