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Anyone else seeing weird behavior during Windows 11 updates lately? My PC restarted multiple times and sat on a black screen for ages. I seriously thought the update failed 😅
Same here. Microsoft apparently optimized explorer.exe and reduced unnecessary memory usage. They also fixed some long-standing File Explorer glitches and improved navigation performance
About time 😅
My File Explorer used to freeze randomly when opening folders with lots of files. Also had that weird white flash in dark mode. After the update, it definitely feels more responsive.
Looks like it. Microsoft recently rolled out the KB5083631 update for Windows 11, and a lot of users are noticing improvements. Reports mention fixes for memory leaks, Explorer reliability issues, and slow system startup.
Just updated my Windows 11 PC and honestly it already feels smoother. Startup time is faster and File Explorer isn’t lagging like before. Did Microsoft finally fix those performance issues everyone kept complaining about?
<p data-start=”50″ data-end=”349″>That’s actually a really solid recovery outcome considering the situation. Once a Synology DS218+ volume crashes during a drive swap, things can go downhill fast. Good call pulling the healthy drive and working on it separately—that’s usually the safest way to avoid further damage.</p>
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What you’re describing is actually a perfect use case for LTO. Large, mostly static datasets with infrequent access are exactly what tape is designed for. With Linear Tape-Open, you can move away from keeping everything spinning 24/7 and reduce both risk and cost.
You can access LTO like a filesystem using LTFS, but it’s not the same as a hard drive. It’ll feel more like very slow external storage with high latency, especially when seeking files. If your workflow involves copying datasets locally before use, though, that limitation probably won’t be a dealbreaker.
At the point where you’re consistently hitting unrecoverable errors across drives, DIY options become pretty limited. You can still try partial restores (especially with LTFS), but for anything critical, a professional recovery service may be the only way to get deeper reads using specialized equipment. Tape recovery is a different beast compared to disks, unfortunately.
If you haven’t already, try multiple passes with different drives of the same generation (or compatible newer ones). Sometimes alignment differences between drives can recover blocks that others can’t. Also, make sure the drives are properly cleaned—dirty heads can make read errors look worse than they actually are.
<p data-start=”944″ data-end=”1274″>There isn’t really a true “ddrescue for tape” equivalent that works reliably across all LTO formats. Tape is sequential, so skipping errors can break the data stream. Some enterprise tools can retry reads with different block sizes or error thresholds, but results vary a lot depending on how damaged the tape is.</p>
Since you used both Archiware P5 and LTFS, your recovery options differ slightly. LTFS tapes are easier to work with because they’re file-based, so you can sometimes copy whatever is readable and skip damaged files. With P5, you’re more dependent on its catalog and restore process, which can make partial recovery harder if there are read errors in critical blocks.
What you’re describing sounds like pretty typical LTO degradation or media wear, especially with older generations like LTO-3. Unfortunately, once you start getting unrecoverable read errors across multiple drives, it usually points to the tape itself rather than the hardware. Creating a full “raw image” of an LTO tape isn’t really straightforward like it is with hard drives, but some tools can attempt block-level reads and skip bad sections.
For LTO workflows, I’ve seen a lot of post-production teams move toward verification-heavy tools rather than traditional backup software. Things like checksum validation and cataloging become really important when you’re dealing with long-term archives. LTFS is great because it keeps things more transparent and less vendor-locked.
Yep, Microsoft actually addressed this recently. Apparently some newer Windows 11 updates may reboot more than once because they include Secure Boot certificate updates in the background. It can look like the update is stuck or failing, but Microsoft says it’s expected behavior.