Tape Data Recovery

Unable To Access A Storage Tape? – Talk To Us – We Usually Can

DataClinic are proven specialists at recovering data from failed, damaged and corrupted data storage tapes in nearly any condition of disrepair, for example:

– Physically damaged tapes
– Logically corrupted tapes
– Failures writing / reading backup or archive data
– Water damaged tapes
– Overwritten Tapes
– Fire & smoke damaged Tapes
– Intentionally damaged tapes
– Broken Tapes

Types of Storage Tape Damage

Physical Damage: This term covers a wide range of problems from damage to the tape itself – for instance twists, creases, folds, or stretches to damage to the cartridge shells or the reels, eg cracks or breaks. Other examples of physical damage include age-related deterioration of the magnetic coating of the tape or damage from fire, smoke, water or physical debris.
Retrieving data from physically damaged tapes is complex but highly successful nonetheless with a recovery rate in the region of 98%.

Logical Corruption / Damage: This refers to a problem where the tape itself is not damaged but there is a problem accessing the stored data. While we have a very good success rate with this type of recovery, it is more difficult than retrieving data from tapes with physical damage. Often the data needs to be gradually restored by repeatedly running software on the tape and piecing together fragments of the data. Occasionally during this process the software will encounter damaged blocks of data and the software has to write”dummy blocks” to the output media and the file has to be logically recreated.

Other types of problems which fall into this category are mistakenly overwritten tapes and tapes where the data has been written with misaligned heads. For all types of logical problem we are usually able to perform a complete or at least partial data recovery.

Tape Recovery Procedure

The first stage in our tape data recovery service is to log your tape with a unique identifier code so that it can be continuously tracked within our administrative system and you can receive regular progress reports. Our technicians then perform a thorough examination of the tape in laboratory conditions checking it for any kind of damage. The next stage in the process is to make a copy of the tape for the technicians to work on, thereby preserving your original media.
Once the working copy is procured the technicians can analyse the problem and determine what procedures will be necessary to perform the recovery. At this point you will be contacted and the recovery will commence as soon as your approval is given.

Nationwide Collection / Local Recovery Centres

With local data recovery centres throughout the UK you are welcome to call in and drop your tape off with us, or perhaps more conveniently, we offer a UK wide collection service that will pick up from any location in the UK – you simply need to box your tape(s) up and call us to arrange a collection – we’ll do the rest.

Why Choose Data Clinic

DataClinic became a Ltd company in 2002 and was one of the very first data recovery companies in the UK. Since then we’ve completed many successful data restorations from tape, the fact that we are still here shows we are obviously doing it well.