Trying to recover data from failed Wide Ultra 320 SCSI Hard Drive

[droctogon]

I have a HP Proliant Ml 350 G2, with 3 36.4 GB 15,000 RPM SCSI Wide Ultra320 LVD drives. The HD in tray 2 has failed and I am trying to recover data from that HD. But am unsure exactly what would be the best steps to do so.

Any information regarding this would be immensly appreciated.

[Trygve Henriksen]

PErsonally, I'd insert the right tape into the tape drive and do a restore, but if that's not an option...

Failed as in?

Rattling/clunking noise?
- If so, forget it unless you want to pay someone like IBAS to do it. Mechanical defects tends to get worse the more you mess with it, so doing an attempt to recover yourself will just make the Pros job more difficult/expensive.

Completely dead?
- Theoretically, ripping the circuitboard from an IDENTICAL drive and transplanting it should bring it back to life.
(Not just manufacturer, size and model must be the same. They REALLY should be from the same job lot, too, to be certain they're using the exact same sub-revision circuits)
But frankly, a good recovery company is still a better choice.

A failed filesystem, though, can be recovered from using tools you can buy online.
(I have had good experience with FileRescue Professional, with among other things physically damaged MemoryStics and SD-cards, but haven't tried it on SCSI drives, yet.)

If you could post a more accurate description, we might be able to give better advice.

[Michael A. McKenney]

If the drive failed, Ontrack can recover it. It will cost $2000-$5000. I would restore from your last backup. If you don't have a last backup with current data, Ontrack.

http://www.ontrackdatarecovery.com/

[droctogon]

Hey guys,

I bought a replacement drive for the bad one. I inserted it into the server, I guess I have to create a new logical drive... If I do create a new logical drive / raid configuration will this delete all the data that was still on the good drive that was raided with the drive that failed?

[droctogon]

Well the server will not boot to windows, it says that Hard Drive in Tray 2 has failed. I have replaced that bad drive with an exact model of hp hard drive. Now it is saying that the hard drive configuration has changed and I need to run the raid utility. But I am certain if I raid the previous drive that was raided with the one that failed to this replacement drive that it will remove all of my data.

[Ali]

Hi There,

It is important to know the raid configuration before we advice the next steps.

What is the controller that you have on this server.

If you have smart array controller then boot from Smartstart CD and launch ACU (Array configuration utility) and check the logical drive status.

Possibilities are you may be able to retrieve the data if you have Raid setup and it's not completely failed

thanks,
Aftab

[droctogon]

Hey the raid config was setup as RAID 5, there are 3 disks on the server, with one going bad. The Smart array controller was 641.

[droctogon]

My logical drive status shows

logical drive #1, raid 5, 67.8 gb, failed.


When I insert the replacement hd disk, it doesn't see any logical drive setup and wants me to create a new one....

[Ali · Accepted solution]

Hi,

thanks for providing the info.

If logical drive has failed, there isn't much that we can do. you might have lost everthing.

However, sometime due to some issue with the firmware, hard drive or logical drive itself it may not recongised the other drive.. thereby raid will fail.

Raid 5 can sustain 1 hard drive failure and logical drive should go on recovery mode. but in your case it is showing as failed.

If you really concerned about the data which might have been lost due to logical drive failure, contact some data recovery company, they have some tools which can recover data even from broken hard drive.

coming to troubleshooting this issue further... you may try few steps.. you might be so lucky if this comes back.

1. shutdown the server completely. (remove the power and network cables also)
2. now reseat all the hard drives and make sure there are positioned in their orginal slot.
3. put the failed hard drive back in if you still have it... else put the replacement drive.
4. plug all the cables and switch on the server and observe if you get any message about logical drive... like F1 or F2 options.
If it asks you to start the recovery process... please do


share your observations

hope this helps,

thanks
Aftab

[droctogon]

Thanks for the quick response.

How do I update the firmware if I can not get the system to boot to windows, much less boot to disk?

This actually did allow something different to happen when I did this procedure. At the moment the server started recognizing the the Array I clicked F2 and it asked did I want to disable logical drives or continue into a safe mode.