data lost with RAID5 on proliant DL360 when drives fail

[msurkan]

For some reason the Array Controller on my Proliant DL360 G6 couldn't recognize 2 of the 6 750GB drives I am running in a RAID 5 configuration with VMware ESXi 5.1.

When I rebooted the server I chose the BIOS option (F2) to recognize the 2 drives it said it stopped acknowledging.

Here is the BIOS option I chose: "Select "F2" to accept data loss and re-enable logical drive(s)."

All 6 drives now show up in the volume again.

Unfortunately, there seems to be data corruption. Many of the virtual machines no longer work and don't even register properly in ESXi anymore. ESXi boots ok, but none of the virtual machines hosted in it work.

I booted with the Array Configuration Utility and it says the Parity Initialization has finished. ACU doesn't show any other errors or information notices.

Is there a way for me to rebuild or recover my data so my virtual machines start working again? It is still a mystery to me why Array stopped seeing the two drives in the first place, but all I want to do now is recover all my data so my virtual machines start working again.

[Skotte]

Hi,

You can try to use something like Disk Internals VMFS Recovery, it's a little costly at $699, but cheaper than using a professional service.

http://www.diskinternals.com/vmfs-recovery/

Other than that, you can try one of the free  recovery tools, If ESX does not recongise these VMDKs, they could just be junk data.

You could try copying these VMDKs to a Windows machine, and trying Winimage or VMware VMDK Mount, which allows you to mount a VMDK against a drive letter in Windows.

http://www.vmware.com/download/eula/diskmount_ws_v55.html

Cheers

Leon