Issue with data recovery on an NTFS (RAID array)

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.
kap
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Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:12 pm

Issue with data recovery on an NTFS (RAID array)

Post by kap » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:14 pm

Hi,
I'm trying to recover some lost partitions from a RAID array, and when I run R-Studio scan, it DOES find the right partition (and a lot more partitions), and even the directory structure on that partition is correct. However, when I try to recover any files from that file system, almost all of the files are "corrupt". In looking at the "properties" for the partition in question, it seems a number of the parameters, like Partition offset, Start etc are negative numbers, which obviously is not right.

Since, it is finding the right directory structure and the partition, I'm assuming that the data can probably BE recovered, but something is wrong with the partition geometry or offset or something.

As background, the array in question is a 10TB raid array, and the raid card sees it fine, Windows sees it "technically" fine, but it is not showing the partitions that should have been there. The array is a RAID5 array and was recently rebuilt as one of the disks had crashed. The array rebuild went fine, but post rebuild, Windows seems to have lost the existing partitions. Nothing has been written to the array since then, and it is not a bootable array, it just stores data.

I'm running this on Windows 7 32 bit. The array is not what Windows is booting from, it's booting from a separate disk (which is just fine). Any ideas or help? Please?

Thanks.

Kap.

Alt
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Re: Issue with data recovery on an NTFS (RAID array)

Post by Alt » Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:56 pm

Sorry, but I bring you bad news. When rebuilding, the RAID controller overwrites previous data on the disks. That's why so strange numbers for the partition offset and start. That means the files are gone.
You may scan for known file types, but I doubt that will help.
And remember: No disk actions with RAID until files have been successfully backed up!!!!

kap
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Joined: Wed Mar 24, 2010 3:12 pm

Re: Issue with data recovery on an NTFS (RAID array)

Post by kap » Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:16 pm

Oh crap...

But, the rebuild did go through successfully, AND R-studio is able to identify the files and directories. What has happened is that somehow some additional partitions have been created, and it looks like that's what "may" be causing the issues. Here, lemme show you the screenshots.

This is the initial screenshot after the scan, and you can see some of the extra partitions. The "real" one is the one identified as "LDM Data Partition" and the size is 9.45TB

Image

Here you see the partitions/file systems it has found "inside" that. The "real" one is the one identified as "recognized1", which has about 6.45TB of data on it.
Image

It even identifies the files and directories on it, but the recovered files seem to be corrupt. Now, look at the following image, the offsets are all negative. Any way to manually calculate/fix this and try the scan again?

Image

Alt
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Re: Issue with data recovery on an NTFS (RAID array)

Post by Alt » Wed Mar 24, 2010 4:59 pm

One can't say that an array has been rebuilt successfully if Windows can't see anything meaningful on it after the rebuild.
The problem is that even you see your files and folders, they contain wrong references to the places where the file data are stored. That red color is an additional proof for this.
Try to look into Extra Found Files, maybe you can find something useful there.

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