Bacula-users

Re: [Bacula-users] Restore data after eof

2008-11-13 16:51:46
Subject: Re: [Bacula-users] Restore data after eof
From: Arno Lehmann <al AT its-lehmann DOT de>
To: bacula-users AT lists.sourceforge DOT net
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:49:28 +0100
Hi,

13.11.2008 21:58, Dan Langille wrote:
> On Nov 13, 2008, at 11:56 AM, Heitor Medrado de Faria wrote:
> 
>> Heitor Faria
>>
>> Dan Langille wrote:
>>> On Nov 13, 2008, at 11:16 AM, Heitor Medrado de Faria wrote:
>>>
>>>> Guys,
>>>>
>>>> This is urgent.
>>>> Is there anyway to restore data on tape after an eof?
>>> I have no idea.
>>>
>>> I would guess that it would require something special to force the  
>>> tape drive to read past the EOF.
>>>
>>> This is not something Bacula can do AFAIK.
>>>
> 
>> Is there anyway of bscan ignore the eof?
> 
> 
> Please do not reply at the top.
> 
> I do not know.  I am quite sure that you cannot force bscan to ignore  
> the EOF.
> 
> This is not a Bacula issue.  This is a tape and tape driver issue from  
> what I know.

Indeed.

With stupid tape technology - i.e., older ones, and only the ones 
without chip memory - you can *try* to position to *before* the EOD 
mark, then write a very short block of data, reload the tape, and see 
if that was sufficient to overwrite the EOD mark. With luck, you end 
up doing this:

Broken tape layout:
Data Block EOF Data Block EOF EOF The data you want to get at EOF
                           ^^^|^^^
          tape drives/ drivers interpret this as an EOD mark
After writing:
Data Block EOF Data Block EOF Data unreadable data The data you want

Then, ignoring read errors, you might be able to access the data you 
want to get at.

Needs lots of luck (which could be less when knowing the exact tape 
technology you use, because, for example, the QIC standards specify 
how long a file mar is on tape, how long an EOD mark is, and how long 
a block of given length is), the right hardware, and afterwards you 
might have to further process you read data.

If you use recent tape technology, I believe there is no way to 
achieve what you want. Those tape drives always know where the tape 
contents ends, and will not be able to overwrite the EOD mark without 
appending a new one.

A commercial data recovery service might be more helpful.

Arno

-- 
Arno Lehmann
IT-Service Lehmann
Sandstr. 6, 49080 Osnabrück
www.its-lehmann.de

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