Crash Recovery Problem

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I have a client who has been using microsoft backup in windows xp
professional to back his system up to a dds4 tape drive. This has been
working just fine, however he had not been paying attention to the logs that
stated it was time to put in his second tape.

Since he never put in his second tape and just kept backing up on to the one
tape he was leaving in his drive, he now has a problem.

1. His hard drive is toasted to the point that none of our data recovery
tools, nor forensic analysis tools will recognise that there was ever any
data on the drive. It appears as though he has installed a fresh drive.

2. We can reload the os and everything on a fresh drive, this is not a
problem, however now when we try to restore the data from his tape, the
backup software wants us to put in the second tape (the tape that was never
made)...

Obviously the data that would have been placed on the second tape is now
gone for good. However, is there a way we can force the backup software to
restore the data that is on the tape that is good so we at least get that
data?

Thanks,
Greg
 
I have a client who has been using microsoft backup in windows xp
professional to back his system up to a dds4 tape drive. This has been
working just fine, however he had not been paying attention to the logs that
stated it was time to put in his second tape.

Since he never put in his second tape and just kept backing up on to the one
tape he was leaving in his drive, he now has a problem.

1. His hard drive is toasted to the point that none of our data recovery
tools, nor forensic analysis tools will recognise that there was ever any
data on the drive. It appears as though he has installed a fresh drive.

2. We can reload the os and everything on a fresh drive, this is not a
problem, however now when we try to restore the data from his tape, the
backup software wants us to put in the second tape (the tape that was never
made)...

Obviously the data that would have been placed on the second tape is now
gone for good. However, is there a way we can force the backup software to
restore the data that is on the tape that is good so we at least get that
data?

Thanks,
Greg
Click to expand...

I have used this on numerous occasions to recover data from a bad drive:
(NOTE: It takes HOURS to complete)

HDD Regenerator 1.51 http://www.dposoft.net/
 
On Mon, 8 May 2006 15:08:02 -0700, Gregory Malsack
I have a client who has been using microsoft backup in windows xp
professional to back his system up to a dds4 tape drive. This has been
working just fine, however he had not been paying attention to the logs that
stated it was time to put in his second tape.
Click to expand...
2. We can reload the os and everything on a fresh drive, this is not a
problem, however now when we try to restore the data from his tape, the
backup software wants us to put in the second tape (that was never made)
Click to expand...

This is the same blues as multi-disk spanned archives; the backup
process can only know all the files and where they are when it is
done, and when it is done it is on the end of the last disk or tape of
the set. Half a set is no cigar, unless you can process the tape
through software smart enough to reconstruct the contents list.

I'd start with the folks who support that particular tape system.
Keep an open mind; the answer may be as lateral as some low-level
utility running from a different OS. In the 286 era, I used to use
PICK R83 (an ancient database-centric OS) to read tapes at a raw
frame-by-frame level to recover stuff from them.

This case does illustrate one particular lesson; while it may be
"easy" to "just backup", this doesn't always mean the restore side of
the equation will be as easy, or even work at all.




-------------------- ----- ---- --- -- - - - -
Click to expand...
Tip Of The Day:
To disable the 'Tip of the Day' feature...
 
I very seriously doubt it. I don't use tape anymore, but the
second tape is hte one that has the toc and directory structure
on it. Are you sure he didn't just leave the same tape in and go
ahead and put the tape 2 data on it, overwriting tape 1 data? If
so, it seems like something should be recoverable on it, but you
might hve trouble telling what's on tape 2 and what's on tape 1,
or was supposed to be.
If he was just stopping without doign the tape 2 step, all is
lost, I'm pretty sure.

HTH,
Pop



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