Data Recovery from Exabyte and VXA tapes

Common Problems

• The restore process fails with a tape I/O error and the cleaning light is on.
• The Exabyte tape cannot be read, nor will it eject.
• The tape partially ejects but there is tape stuck in the drive.
• The Exabyte tape appears to contain the wrong backup set.

These are some of the symptoms you might witness when a failure occurs with an Exabyte data cartridge.

The restore process fails with a tape I/O error and the cleaning light is on.

The drive cannot tell the difference between a fault with the tape, or a fault with its attempts to read from it as a result of contamination of the read heads or some other problem. When a read failure occurs, the drive will decide that it needs cleaning. (This is not intended as a negative criticism, no tape drive can work this one out).

If the problem is head-clog, where small amounts of oxide from the tape build up in the drive heads, then cleaning might well be the answer. If, however, there is a recording fault or damage to the tape (medium error) then tape data recovery might be the only answer.

Altirium can position past the problem and recover all undamaged data, and from this the files can be rebuilt.

The Exabyte tape cannot be read, nor will it eject.

There are times when, following a serious problem, the tape cannot be ejected from the drive. It appears to be trying to load the tape, some mechanical noise can be heard from the drive, but the lights keep flashing and no attempts to eject the tape from within the drive will work.

The cause for this is usually that the drive is unable to read system information that is recorded at the start of the tape, and it needs to up-date this data before is can perform any other operation. Unfortunately this includes the process of ejecting the tape. Another cause can be that the tape has become mis-threaded, the result of a mechanical failure within the drive mechanism.

The problem is knowing what to do, any attempt to manually eject the tape could well result in damage to it. "The tape is recovered but the data is lost", not a satisfactory result if the only copy of the data was on that tape. Sometimes pressing and holding the eject button for several seconds (note: how long, not how hard is the key factor) will result in an eject, sometimes the tape will never return whatever you do.

At Altirium we will take both the drive and tape under the diagnosis part of our service and remove the tape without further damage to the tape. The load mechanism and the tape path are complex and must be fully understood before attempting to remove the tape otherwise unnecessary damage to the tape will occur. Once the tape is successfully removed from within the tape drive then the recovery of your data can begin.

The tape partially ejects but there is tape stuck in the drive.

If the tape has "jumped" off one of the guides within the drive, or has snapped, then it will be entangled within the drive mechanism and, if damage has not already occurred, attempts to remove the tape will make the problem worse by causing further damage.

This type of problem can be caused by a failure in the cassette mechanism, for example one of the reels sticks, or wear and tear within the drive load assembly. The crucial thing is to try and prevent further damage. Pulling the tape free will almost certainly result in creasing or snapping,and a tape that cannot be read, re-inserting it into the drive will not help either.

If you have the cassette in one hand, but there is tape still entangled within the drive then it is time to seek professional assistance. Remove power from the drive to prevent further problems then call us for assistance on how your tape data can be recovered.

In the past our engineers have been able to recover data from many tapes displaying such problems. On more than one occasion we have received drives where tapes have snapped inside the drive and the spinning read/write head has become the take-up spool. In such cases data recovery is very successful because the tape is kept tightly wound preventing further damage.

The Exabyte tape appears to contain the wrong backup set.

If the tape appears to contain the wrong backup set then there is a good change that it has been overwritten, the question then is "by how much?".

Exabyte, like all other tape formats, does not permit access to data beyond the most recent data written. If you have several gigabytes of data on a tape and the tape has been subsequently re-used, even if for only a small amount of data, then a tape recovery service will be required.

The data that has been overwritten has gone forever, the recovery of overwritten data is the stuff of science fiction, but if the size of the overwrite is less than that of the required data then a tape recovery is practicable.