Patent ID: 8924682

Claim:
A system comprising: a virtual tape volume, coupled to receive a write request from a main data system; and an accidental loss protection system configured to detect whether the write request overwrites a label of the virtual tape volume based on at least one previous write request and the write request by determining whether (i) at least one previous write request wrote user data to the virtual tape volume, (ii) the write request jumped or rewound to the beginning of the virtual tape volume, (iii) the virtual tape volume has a label, and (iv) determining whether content of the write request is user data and not a label; if the determinations of all of (i), (ii), (iii), and (iv) are positive, then preventing the overwriting of the label; and if the determinations of at least one of (i), (ii), and (iii), (iv) are negative, then executing the write request.