File recovery on RAID5

[brethin]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

Well if you decide to give up let me know. I can do it for you.

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

^ thanks, i still am giving it a try, limited to my availability but i still am trying.

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

update: i replaced the SATA drive to a IDE drive, formatted and installed XP PRO SP3, updated the adapter BIOS and set both board and adapter BIOS settings to default, now i have successfully booted to XP and the adapter appears up and ready in the device manager, in the disc managing area i see the disc as unassigned space (no unit letter neither) and the only option I get is to create a new partition, i have not done that procedure at this point (to this disc).

i tried to backup with Snapshot but Im unable to select the drive, also shown as free and unassigned.

im gonna try to attach any of the other two disks and see if there's any difference in there.

peace.

[mockingbird]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

Now that you've passed the first step, watch the video again and use the programs he suggests to first identify the order of the RAID Drives and then to recover the data.

Like he demonstrates, you're going to first have to deduce the stripe size, and he shows you how to do it. It's a little complicated, but I think I can do it if I put my mind to it.

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

^ word. Thanks. I am gonna try to be on it today, we just had an earthquake, only thing i like about earthquakes (being at a 4th level) is i get to see some girls of the office across.... damn, there's this lady.... :P

i will keep on the updates (about the topic lol)

peace.

[Per Hansson]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

Now that you have gotten this far you can re-read my first post, that is where you should start now
Also you can use R-Studio to make Image backups aswell, might aswell do it from there since that is the software you will use later anyway

[mockingbird]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

^ word. Thanks. I am gonna try to be on it today, we just had an earthquake, only thing i like about earthquakes (being at a 4th level) is i get to see some girls of the office across.... damn, there's this lady.... :P

Disregard the females and concentrate on your work.

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

^ lol is kinda hard

update: images done sector by sector with R-studio... two of the three disks reported to have a very small area in use, and the rest of the space shown as empty, the first disk i tried was displayed as a whole empty disk, but at least this software actually allowed me image em,. Once again, no other imaging software allowed me to image em, I am curious to know if with the images I could recreate the RAID to try to extract the file, also curious if the configuration I applied on the server array adapter actually made some changes to the disks...

Im moving to next step, unfortunetly I may not have much time left here today, but i will keep on updating on my next moves.

peace.

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

update: I worked on my backed up images, created a virtual RAID with them and went thru the scanning process, many files were recovered and now checked, I managed to bring some of em with me but unfortunetly not all (some of em are Gbs sized), I still havent looked completely to everything already recovered (way too many stuff in there and I ran outta time today) good to know I didnt clearned the disks and managed to get em up, backed up and recovered, too bad the process took me so long and seems its gonna take more time that I need to find everyday, I will take some screenshots, I have successfully recovered a very important log and database backup, (and that truely works, but) still I really hope to find/figure/construct a file I still am looking for.

Many Questions popping out.... a lot of research to be done.

updating will come,,,, but not on weekends xD

and once again I TRUELY APPRECIATE THE SUPPORT, GUIDEANCE AND DIRECTIONS.

peace.

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

Update: About the files I took with me on the weekend some of them needed no work to be ready, others were in parts. Today I worked on the backed up images again, this time I used both R-studio and RAID reconstructor, I used same image files (the ones i created with Rstudio... i dont know if i should create images for each software), Created a new virtual block: I have succesfully recovered way more files than I expected, including now a very specific file I was looking for, I think I could work better on the Virtual RAID if I knew the specifics about the RAID (which I dont) so I keep trying different configurations (start sectors, block sizes, parity rotation, etc )... if anyone knows of a better way of figuring this out (since I have no further info on the array other than its type; 5) please advise me. A reason I think I could work better with this info is (apart from some sort of common sense) that I barely am able to recover files that were on a second partition made into the fixed drive. I also am gonna try to get more of those connectors/adapters for the disks to fit into my SCSI cable that works with the (non-RAID) SCSI adapter because I'd like to try with the three drives attached at the same time to this adapter.

/updates

xD

I once again appreciate the help.

@dood, @mockingbird, @Per Hansson, @brethin, @digge,

beer and soft drugs on me!

peace.

[Per Hansson]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

The software RAID Reconstructor's job is to figure out all the configuration details for you.
Parity Rotation, Stripe Size & Start Sector Offset

It might be that the Image files are not compatible, I am not sure really.

But also be aware that there is another possible problem with RAID5
That one drive died X months ago, with no-one noticing.
Then another drive recently, when you where handed the RAID because obviously it was no longer able to function.

If that is the case it is of course imperative to know which is the old drive, because that must NOT be used for the recovery process!
Doing so would result in data corruption of whatever data had seen changes since "X" months ago occured...

http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

[MXM]

Re: File recovery on RAID5

^ hey, thanks for the info.

I will make new images for the Reconstructor and then give it a try.

I think Im out of resources to figure which drive died first (if that applied) cause I know no one actually was paying any attention to the whole server, but I will run my last shtos on that asking.

One good detail on me testing and recovering from the images is the room i get for failure xD

i will update after the whole process is done again but this time with new images,

thanks again,

peace.