Tape Recovery .. What went wrong?
Unfortunately, the most common reason people seek tape recovery services are avoidable, as they are the result of human error. Examples of this include physical tape decay due to improper storage conditions, accidentally re-initializing an important tape cartridge, or losing one or more tape cartridges out of a tape data set.
Another issue often arises where tape data will originally have spanned across several tapes and if read errors are encountered during the restore on any of the tapes, the restoration software will not allow any further processing. The data stored on subsequent tapes from the set becomes totally inaccessible. We see many physically damaged tapes with creases, broken or snapped media and excessive read errors.
There is another category of tape recoveries which are more rightfully called tape restorations. This is where there are no apparent faults with the tapes or the backup set but because the tapes are old and obsolete, the client no longer possesses the tape drives or tape backup and restoration software necessary to restore the data. This is becoming even more common as IT departments are constantly updating their equipment and often overlook the compatibility of old tape data. Memofix has restored tape data from just about every backup software and tape cartridge made over the last 30 years.
Here are some more causes or symptoms of data loss from tape cartridges:
| Accidental overwrite | Fire, Heat, Smoke Damage | Overwritten header | Snapped or Broken tape |
| Backup software lost/unknown | Hardware no longer supported | Partial restore read hangs | Stretched tape |
| Corrupted Header | Medium media read error | Physical damage | Tape spool damaged |
| Creased or Crumpled tape | Missing tapes | Re-initialized tape catridge | Tape drive defective |
| Degraded tape media | New session started | Re-formatted tape catridge | Tape Media decay |
| Dropped or cracked casing | Old Age Decay | Sabotage or Malicious Intent | Water or Flood Damage |