Digital optical tape archival storage systems and methods are disclosed. A digital optical tape recorder simultaneously writes data and two or more guide tracks onto an unformatted digital optical tape recording medium. A digital optical tape reader includes a camera and an image processor. The camera captures a two-dimensional image of the digital optical tape recording medium including the data and the two or more guide tracks. The image processor extracts the data from the two-dimensional image based, at least in part, on the guide tracks.