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Hello,

I am curious to know, if I manually erase a tape using Quick Erase, are there any tools that can recover the data? I know Media Explorer cannot.

Context - I am contracting with a customer who has not erased tapes and there are years worth. Of the latest LTO8’s we have decided to recycle those that are expired. I am trying to help with a decision as to use Quick Erase or Full Erase in advance of recycling them.

The documentation describing these options has the following under Full Erase:
  “You want to delete sensitive data”.

Does this mean that sensitive data, or any data, can be recovered by any means using Quick Erase?

System in use is self hosted v11.32.59 across 15 sites each with a media agent and tape library.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Regards
Gerry

 

 

Hello @Gerard Murphy 
 

My understanding is the following: 

Quick Erase: Removed headers and pointers

Full Erase: Writes random data over the top of all the other data. 

It all depends on your requirements but i would say a “Hard disk shredder” will do the job and save you a lot of extra work haha. Here is an example of people doing it with over 30k drives. 



Kind regards
Albert Williams

Hi Albert,

 

I should have been clearer - we want to reuse the tapes, so shredding them is not an option.

 

Thanks and Regards

Gerry

Oh, well then the example of Quick and full still stand about what they do.

 

In regards to your original question, without shredding the tapes you will always be at risk of a 3rd party being able to read the data if they put enough effort and resources behind it but for the specific tool “Media Explorer ” it will not work. This is true for both Quick or full, Media explorer cannot read the data. 

 

Kind regards

Albert Williams

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