RAID Recovery / RAID Data Recovery RAID 5, RAID 0-10 multiple / nested, spanned or striped.
Our highly skilled technicians and engineers have completed 1000’s of successful RAID recoveries! Insector Data Recovery Ltd’s expert technicians and engineers are trained in server hardware from all hardware manufacturers, operating systems and filing systems including:
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Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP | |
NTFS/FAT/FAT32/DOS |
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Windows Server NT/2000/2003 | |
Macintosh |
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Linux (All Flavours) | |
Netware |
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Unix/HPUX/Other Flavours | |
HFS/HFS+ |
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EXT2/EXT3/Reiser | |
UFS/VxFs/NFS |
The complexity of many server operating systems and hardware results in loss situations such as:
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RAID Controller failure | |
RAID configuration corruption |
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Server registry configuration lost | |
Multiple drive failure |
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RAID rebuild failure | |
Accidental replacement of media components |
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Intermittent drive failure | |
Accidental reformatting of drives / Array |
No matter what type of RAID level your company has, our technicians and engineers have experience
in recovering the data. Furthermore, server hard drives suffer from some of the same failure points as
drives in personal computer hard drives, some of which are:
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Will not boot | |
Hard drive failure |
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Virus attacks | |
Data corrupted |
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Inaccessible drives or partitions | |
Hard drive crashes |
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Strange clicking noises | |
Fire and water damage |
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Unable to run or load data | |
Surface contamination and damage |
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Accidental deletion of data | |
Drive not recognised by BIOS |
Almost all organisations have turned to RAID-configured data storage on their servers in recent years for their mission-critical applications and data. In spite of being considered highly fault-tolerant, RAID's DO FAIL due to component failure (including hard drives and controller cards), operating and application corruption and, most common, simple human error, leaving your data inaccessible or severely corrupted.
RAID's are amongst the most complex media devices to recover data from. Not only can the data configurations be quite complex (volumed, stripped and spanned, for example) different manufacturers will often use bespoke configuration applications that can add further complexity. Each RAID recovery presents unique challenges.
While state-of-the-art recovery tools and techniques are essential, ultimately it is the experience of the recovery engineer that makes the difference between a successful recovery and a failure.
Successful RAID recoveries often depend on an extremely fine-tuned sense of pattern recognition that is developed over years and years of recovering data from complex RAID configurations.
The engineers at Insector Data Recovery Ltd have been working with RAIDs since their inception in the late 1980s.
Our experienced engineers know RAIDs and their many configurations, from RAID 0 and 1’s with one or two small IDE drives to RAID 5’s and 7’s with up to 14 (and more) SCSI drives and 2 terabytes or more of data.
Success rates in recovering data from RAID's vary greatly depending on the configuration, the cause of the failure and, most important, whether our clients have attempted to fix or recover their data themselves (see “STOP” below.) We are proud of the fact that we have one of the highest success rates in the industry on thousands of recoveries over the past 24 years!
It’s just one reason we have grown to span the globe and count amongst our thousands of satisfied clients, everyone from small businesses to many of the largest organisations in the world; from schools and universities to government agencies.
When RAID's cannot be recovered, 7 out of 10 times it’s because our clients have attempted to fix a failed RAID or recover the data themselves!
Even the most experienced and sophisticated IT personnel do not have the knowledge of RAID data configurations to reliably recover a failed RAID.
RAID's fail for a variety of reasons: drives fail, controllers fail, virus attacks, operating system corruption, server registry configuration lost…the list goes on and on with the most common, of course, being human error.
Often, by the time the problem is brought to our attention, the client has tried a variety of technique to fix the problem themselves, such as reloading the operating system, running disk checking or off-the-shelf data recovery utilities, re-initialising their RAID or loading anti-virus software after an attack…in fact, just about everything they can think of!
DON’T do any of these things! Once you’ve swapped a failed drive or switched drives to increase capacity, if the system does not properly rebuild/re-initialise the first time, STOP and call a data recovery expert. Remember, the data on your RAID drives is most likely mission critical. Don’t take a chance on losing it forever. Let the experts take over.
Perhaps most important, before taking any repair or maintenance action on your RAID, perform a back-up. DO NOT rely on automated, scheduled back-up protocols. Even a few hours or days since your last scheduled back-up could result in the loss of critical data if your RAID is not recoverable. ALWAYS verify the availability of backed-up data before performing maintenance on a RAID.
The number and variety of both software and hardware tools, skill sets and processes to perform advanced data recovery on all RAID systems and hardware types could fill several books! However, there are basic steps in most RAID recovery situations that should be followed; always ensure that the firm you have selected has the necessary tools, experience and commitment to service!
First, are any necessary electro-mechanical repairs required to bring your RAID drive(s) to a readable state? A significant number of RAID recoveries involve physical repairs which must be done in a Class 100 Clean Room Lab. This can involve such things as head-stack changes and replacement of electronic components.
RAID drives may also be non-functional due to firmware corruption (code stored on a ROM chip) or diskware corruption (micro-coding written on the disk by the manufacturer). Advanced data recovery firms, such as Insector Data Recovery Ltd, employ specialized software/hardware tools to diagnose, repair and replace firmware and diskware (which can change frequently, depending on the manufacturer!)
Once the drive is accessible , the next step is to image the drives in the RAID set (also called cloning) which produces an exact bit-stream copy of all data on your faulty drive to a good working drive. All further recovery steps are then applied to the imaged or cloned drive, preserving and securing your original drive and its data.
On the imaged drive, various sophisticated data recovery techniques, specific to RAID configurations, are applied to test the rebuilding of your data. If corrupt data is discovered, sample data is subjected to corruption repair techniques and integrity verification. These steps are most often applied to large Database files, email PST files, Spreadsheets, etc. and can range from semi-automated repairing of files, to repairing and verifying individual files by hand.
After these processes, we will produce a Directory Listing which details those directories and files that appear recoverable. This listing is provided to you to ensure that the data you require is available for recovery.
Once your concurrence is given with regard to the directory listing, our engineers will continue the recovery process, employing a variety of sophisticated techniques. It is during this phase of the recovery process where the experience and aptitude of our engineers play such an important role. In many recovery situations, particularly with the complexity of RAID configurations, years of experience and a finely honed sense of pattern recognition is critical for successful recoveries. Even with the most sophisticated, state-of-the-art software and hardware tools, the experience and talents of our engineers and technicians always play a starring role!
The imaging and recovery phases are carried out on our custom-built test bed computers and network, each of which are configured with specialised software, hardware and data storage systems for different types of recovery jobs. For example, as the recovery process requires 2-3 times the data storage capacity as the capacity of the failed drive(s), we employ a combination of individual drives and large-scale network storage. A one terabyte RAID, for example, will require between 2 and 3 terabytes of networked storage for imaging, manipulation and reconstruction.
Once the recovery process is completed, we verify your data using both automated and manual techniques to ensure that your recovered data is what you need and is fully readable and ready for down loading on your system.
Your data is than transferred to the media of your choice (CD, DVD or another drive) for return to you.
As an additional safeguard, we retain a copy of your recovered data for 14 days.
To give our clients the maximum in service and pricing flexibility, we offer four levels of service to meet your needs:
Choose Regular Service and we will work on your RAID during normal business hours on regular business days. Typically, we will be able to give you a diagnosis of the failure, an assessment of recovery and a firm quote within 1-2 business days and, upon your approval, complete the recovery within another 2-3 business days.
Choose our Premium Service and we will work on your RAID during normal business hours Monday to Saturday. We will normally be able to give you a diagnosis, assessment and a firm quote in 1 day and, upon your approval, complete the recovery within an additional 1-2 days.
With our Emergency Service, our engineers will dedicate themselves to work on your RAID 24 hours a day, seven days a week, doing our very best to get you back up and running ASAP!
With any of our recovery service levels, we can also arrange to come to your site to conduct the first step in the recovery process, imaging your RAID drives. Many of our clients choose our On-Site Imaging Service if removing the RAID drives or server would disrupt their IT operations.
The first step in a RAID data recovery is imaging your RAID drive(s), performing a diagnosis of the failure, determining a recovery assessment and preparing a firm quote for your approval.
Actual recovery charges vary substantially based on the amount of engineering reconstruction time required. A firm quote is provided for your approval as part of the Diagnostic Assessment. Please contact us with your particulars for RAID recovery fee ranges.
Failed Backup Protocols
In many cases RAID systems are not backed up. Many IT managers believe the fault tolerance level of RAID systems does not require external backup procedures or protocols. However, RAID systems do fail and without a backup to depend on many companies suffer a severe setback or are damaged substantially by the loss of what are typically critical and large volumes of data residing on these types of systems.
Insector Data Recovery Ltd’s diagnostic assessment enables us to determine whether each media device is accessible for recovery or needs physical repairs. If the media is inaccessible we will test the components and closely examine the drive platters or other media to determine the extent of physical damage, which enables us to determine what needs to be done for each individual drive or media. In order to successfully recover crashed servers or RAIDs, the replacement of failed or damaged components in a clean room environment is often necessary. Once we are able to get the media to come to a ready state, we will pull the raw image or images off the media by using specialised hardware and software tools designed in our research and development lab.
After determining what steps will be necessary to complete a recovery, we will contact you for approval of your recovery. No work will be done without your prior approval. Once approved, our technicians and engineers will continue with the recovery effort by logically analysing and determining the nature of the data loss situation. If the file system structures are missing or damaged, then the data must be extracted directly from one or more fragments of the image. Once the file system repairs are performed or worked around, the data is extracted and pieced back together. These procedures require detailed knowledge and experience with all configurations of RAIDs and other sophisticated server environments.
For a complete definition on the different types of RAIDs systems please visit our Knowledge Centre White Paper section.
