Damaged tapes? Missing data? Tape media unsupported by your current storage infrastructure? We can help!
No tape recovery is too big. Let our experts save you time on recovering data from tape so you can do more important tasks.
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Common causes of tape failure and data loss.
Corruption: operational error, expired tapes, mishandling of the tape or accidental overwrites caused by inserting or partially formatting the wrong tape
Physical Damage: broken tapes, dirty drives and damage caused by fire, flood or other natural disaster
Software Upgrades: inability for data on tape to be read by new application or servers
Even though tape has a great longevity for data storage, a lot can happen to make the data on them inaccessible. Our engineering team has seen it all. Some examples of successful recoveries include:
- Overwritten tapes (including DLT)
- Quick-erased or partially overwritten data from LTO (Ultrium) tape media
- Snapped or burnt tapes
- Tapes damaged by chemicals and smoke
- Software problems or backup failures
- Tapes immersed in flood water and mud
- Intentional or accidental physical damage
A proven process for tape recovery
Our Ontrack Data Recovery R&D team has been building their knowledge of tape recovery and resources for over 25 years. Our process below has proven successful.
- Tape recoveries are performed in dust-free cleanroom environments
- Tapes and tape drives are carefully dismounted, examined, and processed
- Proprietary tools are used to read and recover around any physically damaged areas
- We are able to quickly image failing tapes to ensure the most complete data recovery possible
Warning: Attempting to recover tape data on your own, or through an inexperienced data recovery provider, may lead to further damage. Select a data recovery provider with the resources, expertise and experience you can trust.
Extensive solutions for all of your tape recovery and storage needs.
Our tape services consist of four straight-forward steps that make managing your archived tape an easy job.
Audit
Find out if your data is physically accessible with the Ontrack tape audit service. We can also provide visibility on what has been stored past its retention period.
Migration
Whether you're migrating from your IT service provider or found that your tape formats are no longer supported, Ontrack can help migrate to a new system or storage medium.
Cataloging
Organizing archive tape data can seem like a daunting task. Let us catalog your legacy data efficiently and make it easier for you to manage.
Restoration
Ontrack can help you quickly retrieve granular information from your tape archives ensuring you are able to comply with legal and government requests.
Forensic Tape Recovery
Do you have an urgent restore request for upcoming litigation? We recover legally sound data from tape media to satisfy litigation requests. Tapes contain a snapshot of data which was present on a system at a point in time.
This could include information which is no longer available in 'active' storage, especially if – in the anticipation of an investigation - efforts have been made by a suspect to manipulate or remove potentially incriminating evidence from the live system. However, this evidence can still be found via a forensic investigation of the tapes. We can recover forensically sound data quickly when urgent restore requests arise.
A trusted provider.
Managing archived data is critical to reducing risk and cost in your business.
By working with Ontrack, you’ll have peace of mind that you can access what you want, when you want it while keeping your archive costs as low as possible.
By trusting us to help manage your legacy data, you will not only be able to quickly react to requests, better manage what data you keep and where you store it, but also reduce storage and maintenance costs.
Tape Case Studies
Ransomware VBK Recoveries on Tape - Server & NAS Systems
Challenge
The attacked volume was originally also used to back up data to LTO8 tapes at regular intervals. Most of these backup tapes were also in the tape library at the time of the incident and were quickly formatted by the attackers. However, the customer was able to save an original unformatted tape with a fairly old backup date, which was then completely restored to the now empty Windows volume with a total of 6 TB. Only then was Ontrack commissioned to examine data recovery options. The HP server DL380 with the 55 3TB hard disks were transported to Ontrack in Böblingen Germany.
Solution
During the diagnosis, a large number of the searched VEEAM vbk files were successfully found on the Windows volume with Ontrack Tools and 27 records were extracted according to a priority list. The restore of the LTO8 tape partially overwrote some of the data sets and damaged the backup files.
Result
A large part of the data could still be repaired and extracted in several steps.
Later on, 19 significantly older LTO8 quick formatted tape backups were successfully recovered too.The attack also affected numerous European sub offices of the customer. Here were predominantly QNAP NAS systems in use which had stored virtual VMs under VMware, including backup VMs that were partially deleted or internally reformatted with another file system. Ontrack was also able to successfully restore complete backup data in 90% of the seven cases ordered.
Join over a half million people and businesses who have trusted Ontrack to recover their data.
Start your data recovery now with a free consultation.
Contact our team of experts. Ontrack accommodates everyone – from the largest government or enterprise organization to an individual who may have lost their digital photos and everyone in between.