Lucius Snow wrote:

I recorded yersterday an important classical concert on a Sony TCD-D7 DAT
portable and a Maxell 3 hours tape. The source, a line out of an audio
console, was plugged on the line-in. When i launched the recording, the
counter was counting properly, the peak meters indicated a good signal and i
was able to listen what i was recording at this time on the headphones. It
wrote a first ID for a 2-3 min sequence and then another one for 2h30
non-stop. Now, when i play my DAT tape, i have absolutely no sound, no
noise, nothing at all ... from the beginning until the end of the tape.
However, the ID with this changement at 3 min is still marked on it. I've
just tried to record again on this same tape and it has worked perfectly.
I have absolutely no clue about what happened. I'm thinking of trying a
recovery but i'm not sure. Has anybody ever seen or heard about a such issue
? Actually, would you think there's something to recover ? Or is it just the
DAT which didn't take the sound at all ?

The start-ID information is not recorded on the main audio track, I do
not believe. This would seem like the result of a poor head wrap. You
now have a tape that has A-time and start-IDs but no data, right?

You might try some of the data recovery guys... there is one fellow on
r.a.m.p.s who has a very good reputation for salvaging some badly made
tapes. But if indeed the track is bad, there is probably nothing to be
done.

This is why the better DAT machines have confidence monitoring. It's
awfully easy for things to go wrong with helical scan systems.

Just please tell me this wasn't a Sony portable with half-size heads.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."