1/4" tape wounded

[Jeff Byers System Admin.]

Is there any way of recovering files from a 1/4-inch tape if only the
beginning of the tape was bad?  Here's what happened, I have a tape with
my cad drawings on it.  I removed them from the system due to disk space.
Whenever I need a drawing I just "tar xvf ..." the file and move on.
DOPEY ME!!  I typed "tar cvf ..." while trying to retrieve a file.  The
file did not exist in my directory and returned an error to me.  Now comes
the bad part...I didn't have the tape on "safe".  It appears as though tar
overwrote the beginning of the tape even though the file did not exist.  I
have approx 250 files on this tape and would really appreciate some advise
(besides turning the knob to "SAFE").  Please e-mail directly to me.
Thanx in advance ...

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