RAID 0 recovery

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Jeffman

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Jul 23, 2008
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Well...somehow one my the discs in my RAID 0 dropped out. I can't seem to get it back up. Any help?

Backgound:

I just upgraded from 4 2TB discs to 4 3TB discs, in 2 arrays. I have an internal and an external. I got the internal up and running, copied the data from the external to the internal. Then upgraded the external, and started copying data back. I've been doing it over the process of a few days, in chunks. About 1/2 way through, I lost the RAID.

I have about 1/2 my data backed up. I lost the other 1/2. It is docs, movies, pics, and music. Some I can get back with some hard work, and some I'll never get back. If I can't get it running it's gone.

I read online about deleting the RAID and rebuilding it, but that doesn't seem to be working. The array is fine now, but the partition won't show up during scans.
 
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Ok, so you have 4 3TB disks in 1 RAID0 SATA internal and 4 2TB disks in 1 RAID0 eSATA? How are all the drives connected (directly per port or with port multipliers/external chassis) Are they hardware, software, fakeraid etc? Can you post any logs or SMART data for the drives in question? In any case, a 4 disk R0 is NOT a good idea for backup, for the reason you have noticed already (a single failure takes out the whole array). If you are doing that many drives, go R5 or R6 (or some other parity/multi-parity method) for better uptime chances.
 
^Yeah, I know RAID 0 sucks for backup, hence the 2 arrays. I just don't have a big enough case for 8 drives.

There are 4 3TB discs in a RAID that is in the case, and hooked up directly to the mobo. It's run using the Intel Raid Controller. This is the one that crapped out.

The external array is 4 3tb discs in an external enclosure, hooked up via eSATA. This one is fine, no problems.

Not sure about logs or SMART data.

What happened, is my wife turned on the PC today to use it for a bit, and about 1/2 during the boot process decided she didn't need it and shut it off. Pretty sure that's what hosed the RAID. I got home from work, powered it up and walked away. When I came back, it was in Windows and my RAID was gone. Intel RST showed that one disk dropped out of the RAID. The disk is fine, ran a quick test and shows no problems. So I read online quick, first site said there's success in just going into the RAID setup, removing all disks from RAID, and then rebuilding it and running a partition recovery program. So I did that. It didn't work. The RAID rebuilds without any problems, but the partition won't come back. :-(

I'm currently running a scan with ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery overnight. Maybe this will have success?
 
I have no experience with intel chipset RAIDs, but as long as there was no disk scrubbing while you rebuilt the RAID (sometimes called initialization or the like in the RAID BIOS), there might be a small chance to recover the partitions. More likely if the rebuild process was an actual rebuild of the existing array and not the creating a new array.

You might want to try testdisk to recover the partitions missing:

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
 
Yeah, TestDisk is what I used the first time, after the rebuild. I didn't seem to find anything. ReclaiMe is working on it, it found a partition and is currently creating a VHD file on a different array. It'll take a few days by the look of it, but hopefully it's the right partition.
 
Nice to hear there is some hope. I didn't know about ReclaiMe before, but if this works out it's definitely a bookmark in my tools folder.
 
It looks like ReclaiMe would have worked, but it wanted to restore the entire 12TB partition, and I only had 8TB available on the second RAID. Bummer.
 
I looked into that and their Raid Constructor. I don't think either will work. Since it's striped, the RAID needs to be rebuilt with the proper partition before the data will be readable. I was able to access data using Recuva, but it was all jumbled due to the striping.

I'll have to keep looking for a way to get the RAID rebuilt, without it creating an image file to be mounted somewhere else.
 
I certainly hope you get your data back man!

I once lost 100Gig of MP3 livesets of parties that my friends and me hosted. I am still broken up about it. It has been 10 years.

Be warned that data loss makes you paranoid. You might end up with mirrored everything + periodically synced offsite backup + cloud storage for the really important stuff ... Like me :)
 
Yeah, I hear that. I lost about 40GB of MP3's back like 6 or 7 years ago.

I keep all the REALLY important stuff on the PC, and also on a flash drive in the fireproof safe, and in the cloud too. Can't be too careful with some things.

This stuff I lost now isn't a HUGE deal, but it's a big enough deal for me to try and fix it than do it over. Ripping all my movies to digital isn't going to be fun to do over.
 
Jeffman said:
I looked into that and their Raid Constructor. I don't think either will work. Since it's striped, the RAID needs to be rebuilt with the proper partition before the data will be readable. I was able to access data using Recuva, but it was all jumbled due to the striping.

I'll have to keep looking for a way to get the RAID rebuilt, without it creating an image file to be mounted somewhere else.
Click to expand...


It doesn't rebuild the array. It will read the blocks on both disks, then attempt to recreate the data from the 2 drives like it was when the array was working. I have used this and it does work quite well, and is exactly what you are looking for if you are trying to save data.

The only problem is, you need somewhere with enough space to copy the data from both drives to so the software can work with it.
 
That's awesome. So, can I copy only the data I'm missing? I'm missing about 4TB, and I have 8TB free on the second array. If that's the case I'll gladly give it a shot, because that sounds like it is exactly what I need.

Too bad I can't try most of these (like a full trial) before paying them. I hate buying software that looks like it will work, then doesn't work, and then pulling teeth to get refunds (If they will even allow it).

Also, since it was GPT (for being 12TB), is that going to be a problem for this program? I couldn't find anything that said "yes" or "no".

Biznatch said:
It doesn't rebuild the array. It will read the blocks on both disks, then attempt to recreate the data from the 2 drives like it was when the array was working. I have used this and it does work quite well, and is exactly what you are looking for if you are trying to save data.

The only problem is, you need somewhere with enough space to copy the data from both drives to so the software can work with it.
Click to expand...
 
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I emailed support, and they suggested I use RAID Recovery for Windows from them instead. They say that it'll do everything I need it to do.

I'll give it a shot.
 
Well...RAID Recovery for Windows was a bust. Trying GetDataBack now. It's finding a ton of into, let's hope the trial will let me open one when it's done and make sure it's not all fudged.
 
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