Data Recovery from damaged tapes

Data recovery from damaged tapes

Ask yourself the following questions:

• What is more valuable the drive or the data on the tape?
• Can I trust a drive that has physically damaged a tape?

The answers will probably be "the data", and to the second question the answer should be a resounding "no". If a drive has chewed up one tape it should be checked thoroughly before any further tapes are put at risk.

For data recovery from the tape it is it is advisable to send the complete drive unit containing the media rather than to risk further damage to the tape.

Our tape data recovery engineers have been dealing with damaged tape media for over 20 years. With their knowledge and expertise they are capable of removing tape from with a drive without exacerbating the damage, and repairing damaged tape media so that access to the data on the tape can be achieved.

How damage affects a backup tape

With physically damaged tapes it is often quite clear to see the damage to the media. Sometimes however, small unnoticeable physical damage such as creasing can occur part way into the recording area of the tape and be unnoticed until you attempt to read or write from that particular section of the tape. Creasing to the tape media often occurs with excessive tape use or mechanical problems in the tape drive mechanism.

Tape damage due to excessive use, usually appears close to the beginning of the tape as this is the most frequently accessed area of the tape. A poor storage or working environment can also cause media related problems.

Depending on the type of tape or backup format, any physical damaged to the tape can be catastrophic and prevent access to data recorded beyond the point the damage occurs.

When the backup software encounters a damaged section of tape, in the majority of cases it will stop and report a media error. Data beyond the point of the flaw, often cannot be accessed even though the files your require might be perfectly intact.

At Altirium, we use our own data recovery tools to read all the recoverable data from the damaged tape. We can then analyse the data to locate the files you require.

Recoverable data from helical scan recording with a media flaw.

Recoverable data from serpentine recording with a media flaw.

The illustrations show the impact of physical media damage such as a crease, that spans the full width of the tape, can have on the different types of recording, helical scan and serpentine. On tape that use a helical scan recording method, such as AIT or DAT, once beyond the media flaw, the remaining data on tape is usually fully recoverable. With serpentine recording however, damage to the data occurs in multiple places as the read heads pass over the same area of tape multiple times.