Control Discovery

Proven Solutions for Enterprise Compliance

Tailoring a Solution to Recover Damaged Backup Tapes

The General Counsel (GC) for our client made representations regarding the availability of backup tapes to opposing counsel.

Unfortunately, although IT management assured the GC that these tapes existed, they never actually attempted to restore any of the data on the tapes.

After identifying the relevant tapes, the client's IT manager informed us that their ability to restore the relevant data was in serious doubt because:

• A batch of responsive tapes had been stored in an unheated warehouse in a climate where extended periods of subzero winter temperatures were common.


• The tape barcode database had been lost, preventing the independent identification of each tape's contents.


• Batches of responsive tapes used older, less-reliable backup technology that the company had long since discarded.


• Backups were recorded in sets of 5 tapes. In order to restore tape data at all, the tapes originally recorded as a part of each set had to be correctly identified and grouped together.

Control Discovery worked closely with IT management to establish which data they could could reasonably recover.

Many tapes had been destroyed by exposure to extremely cold temperatures for whichthe tape media had not been designed.

Of those that were viable, all had to be electronically inspected to establish which tapes belonged to individual backup sets and what information each set contained.

CDI developed specialized data recovery methods to compensate for the failure by the original IT staff to properly maintain its backup tape drives.

As a result, CDI was able to recover the necessary data from the damaged storage media within the relevant time period.

In all, CDI analyzed several hundred tapes and some 600GB of responsive documents in just over two months, despite a daunting set of obstacles.