I have used RAID Reconstructor on several occasions with great success.
Recover Data from a broken RAID Level 5 or 0 Array
Runtime's RAID Reconstructor will help you recover data from broken
*RAID Level 5 Array consisting of 3 to 14 drives
*RAID Level 0 Array (Striping) consisting of 2 drivesEven if you do not know the RAID parameters, such as drive order, block size and direction of rotation, RAID Reconstructor will analyze your drives and determine the correct values. You will then be able to create a copy of the reconstructed RAID in an image file or on a physical drive.
Once you created an image you can use it for further data recovery processing with Runtime's GetDataBack. If you create the image on another physical drive, you can process it with GetDataBack too or you might even be able to directly boot from it.
RAID Reconstructor is read-only
It will not try to "fix" your RAID. It will merely create a copy of your RAID at another location. It will collect sector by sector from each single drive involved and write these sectors in the correct order to the designated destination. This process is also called "de-striping".Because one drive is redundant in RAID 5, it is sufficient to have one less than the original number of drives (N) in the array. RAID Reconstructor can recalculate the original data from the N-1 drives. For a RAID-0 (striped) array you will need both drives.
The RAID Reconstructor will recover both, hardware and software RAIDs. It will recover from broken Windows Dynamic Disk sets.
On your video the labels on the drives are not even the slightest brown color… What temperature we are talking about? Let's say what temperature of the hdd casings? Were the MOLEX connectors melted?
The BBC journalist states that the temperature was hot enough to melt an overhead crane. The computers in this instance were on the first floor, therefore, they took impact damage, (from the fall from first floor to the ground floor), fire damage, smoke damage and fire brigade damage. The link, (so you are looking at the correct one is here
I hope this answers some of your questions.
I will also post some images of some of our more extreme data recovery requests for you to peruse. Some are quite amazing, some were impossible!
Simon
Same question, different spin. I know the disks were RAID5 and I know the order but I don't have a similar server or controller to read that data. Could I corrupt data by mounting to a different server and controller?
Personal experience, many moons ago, in a non-forensic role - allows me to tell you that if you plug them in in the wrong order to the _same_ server and controller, that you can pretty much kiss your data goodbye, and spend your weekend tape shuffling to restore from backup … 😯
It may be that things have improved since then, but I'd suggest experimentation first to be sure ! wink
Your best bet without giving away all our secrets is to simply image the disks, and play with them. Some software will sort the data out for you. Some wont. Some RAIDS wont allow interplay with external software, some will. As with everything in life. Play and find out.
Simon
I have a few hypothetical questions to pose to you.
1) If I have 5 unknown disks, what is the likelihood I could recover data from them? The disks were hardware RAID5 but I don't know that. I also don't know what order they were in or what controller version was writing to them. If I were an expert, what tools would I use to discover the above answers and then recover all the data? Could I cause any damage to the data in trying to figure these questions out?
2) Same question, different spin. I know the disks were RAID5 and I know the order but I don't have a similar server or controller to read that data. Could I corrupt data by mounting to a different server and controller?
Thanks in advance. Doing some Risk Management stuff for school.
It is still possible to work out what the disk are from both knowledge and experience. The RAID issue is the same. All we need is access to the disks then we can most likely recover the full RAID.
Regards,
Simon