Crisis - 2 drives failed in 5 drive RAID 5 array

[stick1977]

My onsite tech got lucky, the server is out of warranty but he found someone at Dell that talked to him for free, yes very lucky. Did I say or imply SATA? Sorry if I did, they're SAS drives. We're trying to get one straight away so as to expedite this recovery, if possible. But from listening to npinc, we'd better get four right away not just one. Thank you for your reply.

[npinc]

Well, there's a reason I asked that. We just ran into it with an HP. BTW, I knew they were SAS drives, it's all good.

Anyways, the hardware was saying the drive was bad, the drive was bad, blah blah blah. Turned out there was nothing wrong with the drive. The backplane was faulty. Take the drive and put it on another port. I wouldn't be surprised if it shows normal. Don't forget, those are 1.2M hour drives.

We also saw this happen in a Dell not that long ago.

[YeOldeStonecat]

Originally Posted by stick1977

Did I say or imply SATA? Sorry if I did, they're SAS drives. .

Was going by "Barracuda 500 gig".....either SATA or "midline SAS" (kind of a half breed).

[lcoughey]

Just note. There are two reasons why we are unable to recover data from a RAID.

1. The drives are damaged beyond recovery
2. The technician and/or client destroys any chance of recovery

So, before you do anything, be sure to get a full sector-by-sector clone of each drive...including the two that failed. Then recover the data from the clones.

If you ever have any questions about an issue and are unsure of the safest course of action, you are always welcome to call me and I can can advise.

Whatever you do, don't spend a day or two fighting with it first. Yes, you might get lucky, but the odds are, you won't. This is no time to gamble.

Luke