Lost Tape Data? Get This Recovery Tip Now

by Edmund Smith

As this is the information age, most firms use other forms of media to store their valuable data. However, there is one form called the tape drive that are still used by many organizations worldwide. The notion of tape data recovery still entails mystery and how it is to be done. This type of recovery is to recover any data that has been lost on a tape.

How can a tape cartridge be damaged? It can be damaged from smoke, dropping into the water, or simply just dropping from high levels. It can also be damaged from the exposure from the sun, extreme temperature, internal mechanism failure, and errors that are located found within the tape’s file span.

Tape data can been recovered from damages caused by water, missing and bad oxide, sliced edges, and even friction damage. These data are recovered using 2 types of recovery methods, namely physical recovery and logical recovery. Read more to understand these recovery methods can help you to maintain your data effectively.

What is needed for a physical tape recovery?

When there is a physical damage to the tape, a physical tape data recovery will then be required. It can be due to the damage done physically to the plastics, cartridge, or the tape itself from preventing the data to be read effectively.

Physical damages are needed due to the deterioration of magnetic coatings on the actual tape surface, cracked wheels, twisted tape, creased tape edges, broken tape, stretched tape, or any other damages connected with the actual tape itself.

There are lots of companies or stores promise a high recovery rate from using physical recovery methods. They claimed that they have over 98 percent success rate of their recovery techniques.

When you have dropped your tape into mud, water or simply dropped from high levels, and felt that there could be some damaged done to the tape. It is important to get the tape to those recovery companies and get them repair as soon as possible.

Logical recovery

Logical tape data recovery is more complicated than physical recovery, and is also more expensive than the normal recovery techniques.

We need logical recovery when the data is unable to read or write even though it has been successfully recorded onto the tape itself. Or there are no visible form of damage to the tape and the tape body itself.

In order for the technician to execute the recovery procedures properly, he has to use multiple versions of the tape recovery software and take many “passes” at the tape using it.

It is quite normal to retrieve back the lost tape data, but the success rate of using logical recovery methods is much lower than using physical recovery methods.

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