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    #1

    File recovery on RAID5

    Hello everyone

    I need some help... I have this particular situation going on. I have googled and tried, found not many progress.

    I have tried with Knoppix, UBCD ML, Ubuntu, Fedora and what-not linux distro to try pull something out of this and nothing i've tried has worked, I need to be enlighten- i know i have much more to do before i call any of those options a failure: it is me the one not knowing how to proceed.

    I was sent three 36.4Gb HDDs and told the order they were set up in the server they were at (away from here).

    All i know is (their suppoused order), and that they were setup as RAID5, on a HP ProLiant DL380. As far as I was told the drives are just fine.

    I currently do not have any system like this close (HP) and the only server i could actually use for try and error is this Dell PowerEdge 2850, that includes a RAID controller (dell codename PERC 4e/Di). On system BIOS the Embedded RAID Controller is enabled and channel A (where the disk are set) is config as RAID.

    I was wondering if anyone could help me out on how to retrieve this one file (a 5Gb+ DB) that I desperatly need to get from em, the rest of the info is meaningless, losing the configuration, array or anything as well: after that file is retrieved i could throw those drives away.

    I have already properly attached the drives on the dell server since i was told the first time plugged in and turned the dell on with em, the third disk wasnt properly set up and it did not turn on (the disk), now it does and on the RAID manager i have set the config for those 3 disk as a RAID5, I still havent managed a way to pull out the file I need, I have not done Initialize process, nor Data clean up, all i did was configure it with defaults values on RAID 5.

    The closest i get is with Gparted on Ubuntu i get to see the LSI MegaRAID adapter and the ~70Gb suppoused area but i marks it as unused spaced and havent found no other way to even 'see it' nor access it. Due to my ignorance I havent tried much more beyond that. I really hope the space hasnt been blanked by me or the one who plugged it before. Other than that i dont know of any misuse. If I enter the array config utility I see the disks marked as Online on the RAID Ch-0 and in the RAID5, with one logical drive configured, and have set up the logicaldrive 0 as the boot drive. I also own an adaptec card (AHA-2940UW) i could use to try to access the disk individually but i have not tried this since i do not know if its ok to proceed this way.

    Any advise will be highly appreciated. Any method is accepted.

    Thanks in advance,

    peace.
    We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: File recovery on RAID5

    What generation DL380 were they from?
    Ludicrous gibs!

    Comment

      #3
      Re: File recovery on RAID5

      See this DEFCON video:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IpeFTARToM

      Mind the crudeness in the Video. For some reason, it has now become 'cool' to be a "pornogeek". Nevertheless, he will give you an excellent idea on how to proceed. Please post your findings.
      "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

      -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

      Comment

        #4
        Re: File recovery on RAID5

        Please be aware some things
        Of course the loss of any one harddrive is no problem, but since you do not know which one might already have failed you need to proceed very carefully.

        All the data is still on the drives unless a very long initialization procedure has been carried out, the same time it takes to do a full format or fill drive with zeroes.

        The first thing I would do is use something like Norton Ghost or DriveSnapshot or something similar to make image files of each harddrive separately so you have a backup incase you fuck up....

        Next connect all drives up at once, it can be to any controller, need not support RAID
        Now run the software "RAID Reconstructor" from Runtime Software
        It will allow you to define the RAID volume in different ways, and should also be able to do some auto detection

        Finally celebrate with beer if it works

        http://www.drivesnapshot.de/en/
        http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm
        "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

        Comment

          #5
          Re: File recovery on RAID5

          @dood, @mockingbird, @Per Hansson: Thank you for the inputs.

          The original server is/was DL380 G4, and for what I was told it was the server hardware the failing issue, not the disks (still I cant say that 100% for sure).

          No initialization was made, also no zeroes format, I have already found Norton Ghost 8, and am gonna start the reading on the documentation of the other software mentioned.

          Im guessing the individual image must be made by attaching the drives one at each time with the adaptec card I have. Im getting hands on this procedure.

          Im hoping to get soon to the beer part of the job but im at the other end at this moment... still I'm trying-

          Once again I truely appreciate the inputs.

          I will keep updated on results.

          peace.

          EDIT:
          I currently am trying to do the individual back up. I tried using the runtime software without sucess before as well, booting to a PE WinXP but i do not remember the error, thats why after backing up im trying this again and taking note of the results. thanks++
          Last edited by MXM; 05-03-2011, 03:31 PM. Reason: updating.
          We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

          Comment

            #6
            Re: File recovery on RAID5

            Ye, btw when making the individual image backups be sure to do a sector by sector copy.
            Do not have it try and identify the NTFS or whatever filesystem (since without all drives it will be corrupt)

            So you will end up with images files that are the exact size of the drive, including any possible free space...

            In fact the "dd" program in linux does a good job at that but I prefer to not recommend it since it's very easy to wipe a drive if the wrong parameters are typed in the terminal!

            @mockingbird; Thnx for the Video, he recommends the same software and procedures I do which makes me happy
            "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

            Comment

              #7
              Re: File recovery on RAID5

              ^ word. good vid and im watchin it again now..

              thanks.
              We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: File recovery on RAID5

                update: So far i havent been able to make my image backups, i cant seem to boot my SATA hdd where i want to load the backup software and place the images (its a 160Gb SATA HDD with a clean WXPSP3 install, when i actually attached the PCI SCSI Adapter WITH a SCSI disk on ID0 i cant boot anymore the SATA drive (the OS did install the SCSI adapter when i first plugged it, withOUT a SCSI disk attached), I have tried everything including BIOS update (MoBo BIOS update) and still cant -and i cant keep looking for another board atm-, my best shot was with a boot manager, i did boot but then the OS did not recognize the SCSI disks and therefore the backup app did not work) im giving myself until noon maybe one hour cause i just got here, if i still cant im gonna go next step and try to recover the DB without a backup, dont have much more time for backing up. I was wondering if I could use that linux Ghost iseen around on some linux distros.

                will keep updating.

                peace.
                We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: File recovery on RAID5

                  Yea, I should mention when you have disk problems (data corruptions due to physical damage on the platters causing bad sectors)

                  Then Windows can be a real bitch about it!
                  The problem is that when Windows boots it automagically mounts all drives read/write, to my knowledge it is impossible to get around this.

                  So with a bad HDD it can take ages for it to boot, I've seen over 30 mins of boot time, just due to a hooked up secondary disk with bad sectors...
                  (And just as many that simply wont boot at all, just hanging the system with a black screen)

                  Here is where Linux is just simply light years ahead of Windows.
                  Boot it up, it will recognize the physical harddrives themselves (i.e. /dev/sda = Hitachi whatever) but it will not look at the filesystem

                  When you mount it you mount it manually and above all in read-only mode
                  For example: mount -r -t ntfs /dev/sdb /mnt/somefolder

                  Now to make the image backup just use dd (with the knowledge that if you misuse it you will wipe all the data on the drive as I wrote previously!!!)
                  dd if=/dev/sdb of=/home/someuser/disk.image bs=4096 conv=noerror

                  Please note you do not need to mount the disk to use dd, that is simply to aid in file recovery via Linux itself, for an image backup you can just run dd directly.
                  You do need to be careful not only with the command syntax but also in choosing the correct drive and or partition
                  Nothing worse than a backup of your own Linux install and not the customers drive(s)

                  EDIT; As for your specific problem with booting make sure to check that the BIOS simply has not defaulted to the SCSI adapter for boot.
                  There are also options named like 15>16m memory hole which can help (enable those)
                  Interrupt 19 capture (try enable/disable)
                  Last edited by Per Hansson; 05-04-2011, 10:05 AM.
                  "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: File recovery on RAID5

                    Update: Thanks, I think before modifiyng the BIOS more im gonna try the Linux options again (and now with the knowledge you've shared. )

                    WXPSP3 actually detected the SCSI card and "correctly" installed it: I thought this was easy solution, but turns out is not since once i attached a SCSI drive into the adapter (and no the adapter by itself) I no longer am able to boot WXP. -My best solutions do not allow me to work the disk on WXP.- EDIT: Frustating, I do not know if the times where i faced the black screen could've been good booting times, i never waited it since in other options all i recieved (not waiting) was a non system disk/press any key.....

                    What Im trying right now is return both BIOS (mobo and adapter) to defaults and boot Linux (I'll try with Hirens ML first), then I'll try to follow your directions and see what happens.

                    will keep updating,

                    peace.
                    Last edited by MXM; 05-04-2011, 11:08 AM.
                    We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: File recovery on RAID5

                      update: I tried with RIPLinux, Gparted recognizes the ~30Gb drive as unallocated space, if i try to run Ghost I cant choose that drive, olny the other 80Gb SATA drive, thus I still havent been able to backup that drive. I dont have that unit on the mounting options, I tried on Mint and did not find any utility to try to back it up, Gparted also shows the drive but thats it.
                      We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: File recovery on RAID5

                        update: i tried Acronis and it recognizes the disc as SCSI interface, problem is I select the ~33Gb disc and it shows me an error window: "an empty disc cannot be selected as source disc for cloning" im stuck here cause i want to believe the disc, to begin with, is not empty.

                        ideas are welcome, i will keep updating.

                        peace.
                        We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: File recovery on RAID5

                          Step 1) Have a working machine with XP Pro installed.
                          Step 2) Put SCSI card in working machine boot and load drivers for card then shutdown.
                          Step 3) Attach drive in proper order ID0 etc to card.
                          Step 4) Boot machine go in bios and insure boot order is correct (we do not want to boot the SCSI drives before we boot the drive XP is installed on).
                          Step 5) Boot XP and go into Control Panel, Admin Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management, Look for the 3 drives marked deactivated and select "reactivate disk" for each drive.
                          Step 6) The raid should then be seen and assigned a drive letter if its still intact, if not then it gets a bit more complex.

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: File recovery on RAID5

                            MXM, I do not wish to offend you, but you're a bit over your head on this one. You'll need better-than-intermediate knowledge and a little ingenuity to do this. I've never done what the guy in the video speaks about, but I at least understand the concepts and theory behind it.

                            If you can't even get the drives up and running, then there's little chance you're going to be successful here.
                            "We have offered them (the Arabs) a sensible way for so many years. But no, they wanted to fight. Fine! We gave them technology, the latest, the kind even Vietnam didn't have. They had double superiority in tanks and aircraft, triple in artillery, and in air defense and anti-tank weapons they had absolute supremacy. And what? Once again they were beaten. Once again they scrammed [sic]. Once again they screamed for us to come save them. Sadat woke me up in the middle of the night twice over the phone, 'Save me!' He demanded to send Soviet troops, and immediately! No! We are not going to fight for them."

                            -Leonid Brezhnev (On the Yom Kippur War)

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: File recovery on RAID5

                              MXM; You can use a HEX Editor to view the drive to see if it has any data on it.
                              I love RAID Reconstructor and R-Studio as I said above, the latter will allow you to view the data on the drive in a HEX Editor.

                              Another alternative again is Linux, but I reiterate that improper usage can just as well wipe the drive, so you have to be careful about what you are doing!
                              It is better to check this on the image file you create, than on the physical media...

                              dd if=/home/someuser/disk.image | hexdump -C | head
                              "The one who says it cannot be done should never interrupt the one who is doing it."

                              Comment

                                #16
                                Re: File recovery on RAID5

                                no offense taken, im still trying all the options again.


                                @brethin, @mockingbird, @Per Hansson
                                thanks.
                                We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                                Comment

                                  #17
                                  Re: File recovery on RAID5

                                  Originally posted by brethin View Post
                                  Step 1) Have a working machine with XP Pro installed.
                                  Step 2) Put SCSI card in working machine boot and load drivers for card then shutdown.
                                  Step 3) Attach drive in proper order ID0 etc to card.
                                  Step 4) Boot machine go in bios and insure boot order is correct (we do not want to boot the SCSI drives before we boot the drive XP is installed on).
                                  Step 5) Boot XP and go into Control Panel, Admin Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management, Look for the 3 drives marked deactivated and select "reactivate disk" for each drive.
                                  Step 6) The raid should then be seen and assigned a drive letter if its still intact, if not then it gets a bit more complex.
                                  hey, thanks for the input, it is exactly at step 5 i get stuck, i cant boot XP once it installed the adapter AND then attached a drive, at this moment I'm trying this again but Im gonna give it some time and see if i get anything after the black screen. I have looked all over the (limited) moBo BIOS and in the adapter utility, still havent found a working configuration. I dont know if there's a chance that this particular board doesnt support this kind of set up. I already tried a WinPE but it doesnt recognize the adapter.

                                  will keep on the updates,

                                  peace.
                                  We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                                  Comment

                                    #18
                                    Re: File recovery on RAID5

                                    Can you do step 4? If not try another machine that allows you to do step 4. What machine are you trying to do this with? Even Dells will let you select the boot device and they have really limited bios options.

                                    Comment

                                      #19
                                      Re: File recovery on RAID5

                                      Have had some problem with scsi cars in the past and booting. If im not mistaken most of them have either a jumper or a bios where you can configure it. Look for setting/jumper that will disable the boot bios of your scsi card. I think it happens due to incompability between cards bios and motherboard bios.

                                      Comment

                                        #20
                                        Re: File recovery on RAID5

                                        ^ i do get to step 4, and i have looked to all the options i see regarding booting options... i am still gonna look for more options and boards,,,, i just havent managed to properly boot with the drive properly attached... i think this oem board with limited bios is giving me that hard time. im also starting to be suspicious at my SATA HDD....


                                        update:

                                        @digge: thanks, i am getting info on the adapter, i have already tried different jumper configs but they only change the ID of the drive,

                                        updating soon,

                                        peace.
                                        Last edited by MXM; 05-04-2011, 03:43 PM.
                                        We don't have a great war in our generation, or a great depression, but we do, we have a great war of the spirit. We have a great revolution against the culture. The great depression is our lives. We have a spiritual depression.

                                        Comment

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