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Imaging Linux MD RAID Drives on Windows 7 PC

Posted: Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:53 pm
by PBS67
Hi I am attempting to recover data from a QNAP 4 bay NAS In RAID 5. I have removed the drives and the first step is to create images on 4 spare HDD's before recovering data using R-Studio (I am using a Windows PC running WIN 7 with R-Studio). I have been advised to prevent the PC from trying to mount the NAS drives when connected by running CMD.EXE diskpart and commands "automount disable" and "automount scrub" to prevent possible data corruption.

My questions are:

1. Is it necessary to prevent the PC trying to automount the Linux MD RAID NAS drives in this way?
2. Given that the drives are Linux MD RAID, will R-Studio recognize them when running on a WIN 7 PC?
3. Or do I just connect the donor Linux drives via SATA and use "Create Image" in R-Studio as per the help documentation?
4. Is "Create Image" in R-Studio best for this step or is performing this in R-Drive Image preferable?

Advice appreciated!

Re: Imaging Linux MD RAID Drives on Windows 7 PC

Posted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 9:30 am
by Alt
PBS67 wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:53 pm
1. Is it necessary to prevent the PC trying to automount the Linux MD RAID NAS drives in this way?
2. Given that the drives are Linux MD RAID, will R-Studio recognize them when running on a WIN 7 PC?
No. Windows simply can mount neither the entire RAID, nor the separate disks because it doesn't recognize the file system on the entire RAID, or the fact that the disk is a part of a Linux RAID.
PBS67 wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:53 pm
3. Or do I just connect the donor Linux drives via SATA and use "Create Image" in R-Studio as per the help documentation?
Yes, that will be the best option, provided you have enough storage space for the images.
PBS67 wrote:
Fri Jan 25, 2019 12:53 pm
4. Is "Create Image" in R-Studio best for this step or is performing this in R-Drive Image preferable?
They're identical in their performance, but the module in R-Studio has more options.