Looking to read past EOT on DDS/DLT/LTO

Hi I've had the same problem some years back, with a DDS-3, IIRC I did some research, and the most reasonable outcome was that it was not possible by normal means, because some algorithm reading synchronisation data couldnt find out what was happening, so, the backup was ruined..... /Nico ----- Original Message ----- From: Stan Sieler To: cctalk at classiccmp.org Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2017 8:24 PM Subject: Looking to read past EOT on DDS/DLT/LTO Hi, We have a friend with a "tape" (DDS, DLT, or LTO ... don't know which yet) to which was written a system backup. Thousands of files, with an EOF between each file, and a double EOF + EOT at the end. The problem: They then accidentally overwrote the start of the tape yesterday with about 1 KB of data, plus EOT. (By EOT I mean the "logical end-of-tape" indicator placed there by the drive firmware when a tape is rewound / unloaded after it's been written to.) So, we want to try to recover the files after that 1 KB + EOT. On reel tape, no problem. I'd read until I hit the double EOF, and then skip the partial file (by looking for the next EOF), and then...gravy. But, DDS/DLT/LTO drives won't let me get past that darn logical end-of-tape. Are there solutions anyone can suggest? I've only heard of two approaches: 1. find a drive with modified firmware, one that treats an EOT like an EOF While I heard some existed for DDS-1 drives, that lead was 20 years old :) 2. insert tape, start writing (at the start), write until I'm sure I've written over the area where the EOT was, power cycle the drive read from the start, skipping over the data I just wrote, handle the possible corrupted record, and the I've got good data from past the EOT (note that this method loses a small amount of old data past the EOT that we overwrote). On DDS drives, I used this technique once or twice successfully, although I seem to recall I couldn't do the "read until I get to the good stuff" because of the probability of a bad record on the tape (where the power fail was) ... but the solution was to load the tape and then say "skip forward 3 EOFs", and the skip-to-EOF would quietly ignore (usually) any bad record before the EOF. BTW, if this is DDS, it's unlikely to be newer than DDS-4 (but possible), if it's DLT, it's likely one of the first two or three generations, and if it's LTO, it's extremely unlikely to be anything other than LTO-1. thanks, Stan -- I am using the free version of SPAMfighter. SPAMfighter has removed 11142 of my spam emails to date. Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len Do you have a slow PC? Try a Free scan http://www.spamfighter.com/SLOW-PCfighter?cid=sigen