Tape recovery

[crecomp]

Hi
Can anyone recommend any good software to recover tapes?
A while back there was a company I think in the uk that provided data recovery software for types, it was not vendor specific .
I cannot recall the name nad a google search is not helping me find them.
Totes are lto5 that need to be read to extract data .
Thank you

[DataRecGuy]

ontrack.com/uk

[crecomp]

Thank you, however i am looking for software, not the service to recover tapes.

[fzabkar]

I have a general observation about tape drives, VCRs, and any electromechanical storage device that uses rubber parts. Over time, drive belts and pinch rollers will degrade into a sticky "goo". IMO, it is highly advisable to tear down the drive mechanism and inspect it for deterioration of this type. Pinch rollers, for example, bear against the tape, so media damage will be inevitable in such cases.

[fzabkar]

Can one use Linux dd to create an image of the tape? I'm assuming that the drive shows up as a standard SCSI storage device that Linux can recognise.

[crecomp]

thank you for the reply
i remember those days with pinch rollers on vcr's form a very long time ago when i worked on them
the tape drive i am using is relatively new and in good working order, as you pointed out i am trying to get the drives imaged to a file that i can then work on them as required using my other DR tools.
i have not tired linux yet and will try and so this afternoon to see if the tape mounts correctly
thank you

[Dananjaya]

hi.

what kind of tapes you mean? digital video tapes like mini DV?
VHS tape or VHSC?
DATA tapes like audio cassette?
BETA or other?

and what do you mean recover. do you want convert video tape to video file?

[fzabkar]

what kind of tapes you mean?

Totes are lto5 ...

[pcimage]

Last time I had a tape job in (a long time ago!) I used this...

https://www.nucleustechnologies.com/Tap ... tware.html

[crecomp]

Hi pcimage
Tried that already
Unfortunately the software won’t read the tape contents. It shows the tape being inserted in the reader,
When I try and extract it to an image file, it just says no data found, same happens across multiple tapes that definitely contain data.
Thank you

[Cleanroom]

There is very few pieces of software out there that you can get that will do what you need it to do. With most tapes you will either need to recreate the native environment or get one of the expensive pieces of software that will virtualize that environment by scanning the header and determining what software was used to do it.

We use MMPC here and it works about 80% of the time since it has not been updated in god knows how long. We also have a local tape expert that created his own solution that we use sometimes as well.

In the long run, it would be cheaper to farm it out since I doubt you will see a lot of tape jobs.

Just my opinion

[Jidis]

I have a general observation about tape drives, VCRs, and any electromechanical storage device that uses rubber parts. Over time, drive belts and pinch rollers will degrade into a sticky "goo". IMO, it is highly advisable to tear down the drive mechanism and inspect it for deterioration of this type. Pinch rollers, for example, bear against the tape, so media damage will be inevitable in such cases.

They are a wreck. I've had to restore many cassette and R2R machines. I've got ones I put new belts in and never put to use which are already in need of replacement just from sitting a few years. I don't know what it is with those rubber formulations, but some will simply dry up, stretch, or break, and others will transform into that disgusting goo you mention, which proceeds to transfer itself to everything it contacts. Speaking of which, there's also a decade or more of tape (mainly reel) plagued with what people call "sticky shed" syndrome where the coating breaks down over time, not only degrading the tape, but coating the heads and transport parts. I had to buy a dehydrator for that.

Take Care