Recovering data from HDDs that where setup in a RAID

[Steve202]

I've got a machine on the bench that needs some data recovering from the hard drives. I believe the machine was setup with RAID as my customer said 'they were joined together to create one drive'.

Customer tells me the motherboard was replaced at the beginning of the year but that didn't fix the problem (not sure what the problem was, he didn't tell me). I can't get the PC past POST so I'm not sure whats been setup. Is it possible to recover data from the hard drives and if possible whats the best way? Could I just plug them into my bench PC and recover data that way?

Cheers

 

[lcoughey]

I may be able to assist remotely, if need be. You will need to follow these steps, if you don't want to risk losing their data.

Step 1 - get a full sector-by-sector clone of all client drives with ddrescue
Step 2 - connect clones to test system and use software recovery tools to virtually reconstruct the RAID and then recover the files out to a new hard drive

 

[Steve202]

I've have a go using this method tonight. I'll let you know

 

[PCSupportGlasgow]

'they were joined together to create one drive'.

Customer tells me the motherboard was replaced at the beginning of the year but that didn't fix the problem (not sure what the problem was, he didn't tell me).
Cheers

personally those 2 comments make it look like client has been trying fix after fix before getting pro help (either that or been to some bedroom admin),. Personally i wouldn't spent too much time on it and just get it sent to data recovery specialists

 

[Knightsman]

Active file recovery, has support for raid. Check it out

 

[Steve202]

personally those 2 comments make it look like client has been trying fix after fix before getting pro help (either that or been to some bedroom admin),. Personally i wouldn't spent too much time on it and just get it sent to data recovery specialists

I got the same feeling. I managed to get some of the data he was looking for and I'm returning the machine later on today.

 

[phaZed]

I purchased R-Studio specifically for RAID recoveries. Not cheap but works well.

 

[onetech4all]

I recently also bought R-Studio Network Edition, for a RAID 0 recovery. Got an image from both drives, and still extracting the data 4 days later. Lots and lots of movies and pictures, for about 250 GB, with very little documents.
I will also buy the Recovery Agent as soon as I can.