A user accidentally deleted a critical file. A technician tries to restore it from tape backup but receives an error that the file does not exist on the tape. Which of the following should the…

The error states the file does not exist on the tape, which is consistent with the wrong tape being loaded. Verifying the correct tape is in the drive is the most basic and highest-priority troubleshooting step because all subsequent actions are meaningless if the wrong media is being read. This follows the principle of checking the simplest and most obvious cause first before escalating to more complex remediation steps.

Re-indexing the tape library is premature if the wrong tape is in the drive and would not resolve the issue of an incorrect tape being queried.

Running a differential backup now does not help recover the already-deleted file and is irrelevant to the restore operation.

Updating tape drive firmware is a maintenance action unrelated to a missing file error and should not be performed before verifying the correct tape is present.