raid0 filename recovery

Discussions on using the professional data recovery program R-STUDIO for RAID re-construction, NAS recovery, and recovery of various disk and volume managers: Windows storage spaces, Apple volumes, and Linux Logical Volume Manager.
mowglie
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Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:40 am

raid0 filename recovery

Post by mowglie » Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:51 am

i ran r-studio linux on a raid0 set of 2 physical drives (originally part of a raid10 array but pursuing data recovery on each striped pair separately - entire array was zimbra mail server).

it recovers much of the data! but as others have posted, the filenames are all just #s. if i preview the txt files, i can see the valid data in them (emails). if i recover & open w/ a txt editor, its chinese & random characters. i suspect thats b/c they are not really txt files & i am using the wrong app, but r-studio is rescuing them as txt files.

so i just want to recover the filenames. is there any way/hope of doing this? am i just doing something wrong (raid parameters)? i am using offset 0 & block size 256 (b/c the original stripe size was 256 - it was ibm serveraid sas 8i card & they use stripe size vs block size i think). i cant really follow the directions on the find raid parameters link b/c no partitions of any sort are ever detected (tried mdadm, dmraid, r-linux, r-studio, fdisk, testdisk). i never write data to the drives; just read.

i did a full bad blocks check on all 4 drives & no bad sectors/blocks on any. i suspect the raid card or mobo died; i have no clue how that damaged the raid/partition data on the drives, but the data is still there! i just need to get the filenames so i can use the data. the directory structure would be great too but i can live w/ just filenames.

i appreciate any guidance/tips/advise!

Alt
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Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by Alt » Sat Nov 24, 2012 2:26 pm

You may try to check the RAID parameters using this free software: ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery.

mowglie
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Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:40 am

Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by mowglie » Sat Nov 24, 2012 3:28 pm

thanx. i only have linux, no win CDs. so thats why i tried rstudio. but it just recovers data split among randomly named files. ea recovered file actually has > or < original files' data.

Alt
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Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by Alt » Mon Nov 26, 2012 1:11 am

Most likely, the file system is severely damaged, but it's impossible to say more without looking at the actual data.

mowglie
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Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:40 am

Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by mowglie » Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:00 am

thats what i feared. the data is indeed still there b/c when i look at the recovered files, i can see parts of various original files in each "recovered" file. emails/config files/html files etc. but rstudio doesnt find any partitions or resurrect the folder structure.

honestly if i can just get each original file as a file (w/ or w/o filename) i can salvage it. it will take days/weeks more to recover but i can write scripts to filter & salvage based on the data within. but i cant even recover ea original file as its own file right now. i thought i was using the wrong block/stripe size since most jpegs were recovered as half or quarter images, so i tried various block sizes. similar results. i'm quite certain the size is 256 though. offset, i'm not sure; probably 0.

if i use something like testdisk or other tool to create a new partition table, i can then mount the disks individually via linux. will that help/hurt/be futile? these are members of raid10 so i suspect mounting any 1 disk to recover files larger than the block size will be futile (such files saved across 2 striped disks?).

feedback appreciated on all of above ... even if for knowledge only.

Alt
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Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by Alt » Wed Nov 28, 2012 5:04 am

mowglie wrote: i thought i was using the wrong block/stripe size since most jpegs were recovered as half or quarter images, so i tried various block sizes. similar results.
This is a very important point. Were jpeg images recovered as images of the half or quarter sizes, or they looked like stripes of the same one or two original images scattered over the recovered ones?
If latter, surely the disk order or/and stripe order and or/size were selected wrongly. I strongly recommended you to use this program, maybe at someone else computer.

mowglie
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Nov 23, 2012 9:40 am

Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by mowglie » Wed Nov 28, 2012 12:22 pm

they were just partial images. like 1/4 or 1/2 the image & rest of image was gray/blank. not patches or image repeated.

what do you mean on someone elses computer? i am already using another server (diff from the neurotic one that died on me) for recovery/testing/praying.

Alt
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Re: raid0 filename recovery

Post by Alt » Thu Nov 29, 2012 5:16 am

mowglie wrote:they were just partial images. like 1/4 or 1/2 the image & rest of image was gray/blank. not patches or image repeated.
That's bad, looks like the data on the other computer is damaged, or it's completely out of sync due to severe errors in RAID parameters.
mowglie wrote:what do you mean on someone elses computer? i am already using another server (diff from the neurotic one that died on me) for recovery/testing/praying.
I mean another PC running windows, maybe someone else one.

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