RAID 5 2 drives failed! Rebuilding data...

[Adrian Bolster]

My client had a RAID 5 array with 3 drives that are still under warranty and two of these drives have failed. I am not an idiot and know that this means that their data has gone.

We have obtained replacements from HP and are rebuilding the server today. The question is, if I manage to get the data off the drives by whatever means can I emulate the RAID array with software to restore any files that did not backup. There are some as the drives failes before the backup ran!

Or must I image these drives onto new drives?

Anyone had a similar experience, or can help point me in the right direction?

[Ranjith_5]

Hi,

Restoring the data will not work because the disk contains parity data too which we cant backup and restore. By any chance if you can recover the failed disk, the only option that can work logically is cloning those disks to the exactly similar disks. Now insert this in to server. Obvioulsy this will show failed state. Now go into raid configuration and try to make the failed disks online. If this works you should get your data. This is just a logical reasoning. I have never tested this.

regards,
Syam

[Volker Spies]

Hello Adrian,

there is a software called RAID reconstructor:

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

It tries to reconstruct the raid arry depending on the infomations on the drives and tries to recover the data.

I've tested it once and the software failed on a 5 disk RAID5 Array.

But hey give it a try.

Volker