Recovery From Digital Tapes

Server and Personal Computer Tape Backup systems using 4mm DAT, Travan, Exabyte 8mm, LTO and the various QIC formats are popular and necessary to safeguard your data.

When these tapes fail the situation is normally catastrophic as they were often the only remaining repository of their data.

Popular backup software such as Symantec BackupExec, Legato's Networker, Computer Associates ArcServe, Microsoft NTBackup, Dantz Retrospect plus the unix tar and cpio utilities (and many more) all use different internal formats which Sherlock Data Recovery Services programmers understand and extract data from.

Sherlock Data Recovery Services has established a partnership with Quantum Corporation to provide a manufacturer-authorized tape data recovery service. We perform recoveries under the Sherlock Data Recovery Services brand

Examples of Ditgital Tape,DLT Loss Situations - Tape

The Digital Tape Recovery Process

Initial diagnosis determines whether the media is accessible to our lab equipment. If so, the first priority is to create a raw image of the data on Sherlock Data Recovery Services tape or drive media so that logical analysis can determine the nature of the data loss situation. If the media is inaccessible our lab will test the cartridge components to determine the extent of physical damage.

Recovery of damaged tape media often involves cleaning, splicing & respooling healthy segments of tape into new carriers using specialized tools. Specially configured tape drives using customized hardware and software tools are used to create a raw image from whatever portions of tape that are readable.

Logical recovery uses the raw image by examining the low-level data sectors and determining what fixes to tape format structures are needed to get access to the important data. Sometimes the existing structures are missing or damaged so much that data has to be extracted directly from the raw image.

Sherlock Data Recovery Services Data Recovery Labs programmers have created a full set of software tools used by our technicians to analyze, fix & recover data from raw tape images. Once a recovery has been successfully performed, file lists are created and data validity is checked.

Data Recovery Turn Around Time

Sherlock Data Recovery Services has geared its entire service to recover your data as fast as possible. When dealing with such a wide variety of problems, estimating time before the problem is diagnosed is difficult. That is why, each recovery case starts with an evaluation. The evaluation is started immediately on receipt of the tape media and usually takes 1 to 2 days.

Complete recovery turn-around time including analysis and recovery is usually between 2 and 10 days.

Our hours of operation are 9am to 7pm EST Monday to Saturday If you have an emergency situation, we have technical staff on call for weekends and after hours in all locations.

Time estimates are based on procedures and expertise required to recover the data you require. You are not charged by the hour. A firm quote is provided for your approval following the evaluation.

Recovery Pricing for Tapes

Sherlock Data Recovery Services's Labs have recovered from thousands of these recoveries over the years. As you may expect, no two data recovery scenarios are identical in all respects. Therefore, this uniqueness makes it impossible to give a realistic indication of pricing without knowing all the facts for a particular case. Generally speaking, pricing starts at about $100.00.

Over the phone, our highly trained Customer Service Consultants will be able to give you some idea of what pricing you would be looking at given your particular configuration and set of circumstances. Sending in your media for a no obligation evaluation will give us all of the information we would require to give you a firm quotation for the recovery of your data.

Tape Formats and Manufacturers

Backup File Formats

Critical Response Options

If you have a critical situation and need immediate help, Call us at (212) 249-9888. The Critical Response Service is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Fees for this service start at $100.

Critical Response Service at our facilities

This service is for mission critical data recovery, where the media can be taken to one of our facilities. In the facility, dedicated resources and critical response team members are committed to around the clock to your recovery case until its resolution.

Onsite Service

This service is available for situations where immediate shipping to one of our facilities is not feasible or desirable. A technical expert or team of engineers can be dispatched to stabilize and analyze the circumstances of your failure. Response is as fast as possible. For example the time it takes to catch the next plane to your location. This service is not for everybody but if you have a situation that merits this level of service, Sherlock Data Recovery Services is ready to do what is necessary to get the job done.

Our Critical Response Team is comprised of best data recovery experts. They are called on for every kind of situation imaginable from multiple drive multi-Gigabyte and Terabyte RAID servers , Jukeboxes, custom installations and configurations, SQL Database corruption, to tape failure and custom file extraction from corrupted backup sets. Whatever the situation, these technology gurus are ready to recovery your data.

How to Submit a Recovery Case

Fill out the On-Line Evaluation Request form or the Printable Evaluation Request form and send it to Sherlock Data Recovery Services with your hard drive for recovery.

Careful packaging is important to perserve delicate electronics like hard drives. See Sherlock Data Recovery Services -Packaging Instruction to help avoid shipping damage.