RAID Reconstruction

muzicman82 · Post by **muzicman82** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 1:57 am

So here's my saga.

I purchased an OWC Mercury Elite Pro Qx2 RAID enclosure. It uses the Oxford 936SE chipset. I own another one of these too. At the time, they had on their "supposed drives list" WD Caviar Green drives. Now, I generally don't buy green drives, but I was on a budget and I was reading some success stories on the web of these working. I contacted OWC and they said they would work.

Once I built the thing, it seemed to work fine, although not as fast as my other Qx2 with Caviar Black drives.I had it set up in 4x drive RAID5, formatted NTFS in a single volume.

I moved a bunch of data to it with no problem. After some time, I turned it off. Today, I turned it on and it went right into Rebuild mode. According to the documentation, the Rebuild LED should be accompanied by another LED indicating the drive that has failed, however none of them lit. I can't hear any drive activity either.

I mounted the drives on a PC and R-STUDIO immediately shows that two of the drives have "Partition1" and other other two don't have any partitions. I am assuming this is a problem.

I am searching for a way to reconstruct this RAID array. So far, I've tried demos of Runtime's RAID Reconstructor for Windows, iRecover, and DiskInternals RAID Recovery. I have also tried R-STUDIO, but I don't know what parameters to give it. So far, none of them have been able to detect the correct RAID settings. I am guessing this has something to do with two of the drives not having partitions. Despite that, I am pretty sure the data is still there.

So, my question becomes, how do I reconstruct this array even though the partitions on two of the drives are corrupt?

Thanks!

Post by **Alt** » Mon Nov 07, 2011 3:45 am

No, a single drive in a RAID5 set doesn't necessary have a partition bootrecord on it, most don't. So, this is not the problem.
I think, these two our articles could help you: RAID Recovery Presentation - a general overview on how to work with RAIDs in R-Studio when all RAID parameters are known, and Finding RAID parameters - how to find those parameters.

muzicman82 · Post by **muzicman82** » Wed Nov 09, 2011 11:29 pm

I've read those articles but things don't seem to be going as "standard" as the articles imply. I've found the boot sector code, but it is only on one of the four drives. I've been told by OWC that it uses 32kb block size, but I'm not sure if that is accurate. I've been trying to get more info from them about drive order, offsets, etc, but they aren't being very helpful.

On another note, I have another of the same enclosure with a working RAID set. I pulled those drives and tried Runtime's RAID Reconstructor software which automates the setting discovery, and it was unable to find the right settings on the working RAID set. This worries me in that things may not be standard enough to reconstruct the data manually. Is that a legit worry? On the other hand, the fact that a working set can't be auto detected means the bad set may not be THAT bad.

I've posted the first byte of each drive below. Can anyone help find anything here? I realize it might not be enough data.

Code: Select all

 Sector 0

           0:  45 46 49 20 50 41 52 54 - 00 00 01 00 5C 00 00 00  EFI PART....\...
          10:  64 E7 B3 21 00 00 00 00 - 01 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  dç³!............
          20:  2F 06 9D BA 02 00 00 00 - 22 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  /..º....".......
          30:  0E 06 9D BA 02 00 00 00 - 2C 20 40 51 D0 D1 87 4C  ...º...., @QÐÑ‡L
          40:  AB 63 8E 2E F8 AA 5B 8F - 02 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  «cŽ.øª[.........
          50:  80 00 00 00 80 00 00 00 - 3A 9C 8B F3 00 00 00 00  ........:œ‹ó....
          60:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          70:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          80:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          90:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          A0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          B0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          C0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          D0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          E0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          F0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         100:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         110:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         120:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         130:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         140:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         150:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         160:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         170:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         180:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         190:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1A0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1B0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1C0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1D0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1E0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1F0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

Code: Select all

 Sector 0

           0:  33 C0 8E D0 BC 00 7C 8E - C0 8E D8 BE 00 7C BF 00  3ÀŽÐ¼.|ŽÀŽØ¾.|¿.
          10:  06 B9 00 02 FC F3 A4 50 - 68 1C 06 CB FB B9 04 00  .¹..üó¤Ph..Ëû¹..
          20:  BD BE 07 80 7E 00 00 7C - 0B 0F 85 0E 01 83 C5 10  ½¾..~..|..…..ƒÅ.
          30:  E2 F1 CD 18 88 56 00 55 - C6 46 11 05 C6 46 10 00  âñÍ..V.UÆF..ÆF..
          40:  B4 41 BB AA 55 CD 13 5D - 72 0F 81 FB 55 AA 75 09  ´A»ªUÍ.]r..ûUªu.
          50:  F7 C1 01 00 74 03 FE 46 - 10 66 60 80 7E 10 00 74  ÷Á..t.þF.f`.~..t
          60:  26 66 68 00 00 00 00 66 - FF 76 08 68 00 00 68 00  &fh....fÿv.h..h.
          70:  7C 68 01 00 68 10 00 B4 - 42 8A 56 00 8B F4 CD 13  |h..h..´BŠV.‹ôÍ.
          80:  9F 83 C4 10 9E EB 14 B8 - 01 02 BB 00 7C 8A 56 00  ŸƒÄ.žë.¸..».|ŠV.
          90:  8A 76 01 8A 4E 02 8A 6E - 03 CD 13 66 61 73 1C FE  Šv.ŠN.Šn.Í.fas.þ
          A0:  4E 11 75 0C 80 7E 00 80 - 0F 84 8A 00 B2 80 EB 84  N.u..~...„Š.².ë„
          B0:  55 32 E4 8A 56 00 CD 13 - 5D EB 9E 81 3E FE 7D 55  U2äŠV.Í.]ëž.>þ}U
          C0:  AA 75 6E FF 76 00 E8 8D - 00 75 17 FA B0 D1 E6 64  ªunÿv.è..u.ú°Ñæd
          D0:  E8 83 00 B0 DF E6 60 E8 - 7C 00 B0 FF E6 64 E8 75  èƒ.°ßæ`è|.°ÿædèu
          E0:  00 FB B8 00 BB CD 1A 66 - 23 C0 75 3B 66 81 FB 54  .û¸.»Í.f#Àu;f.ûT
          F0:  43 50 41 75 32 81 F9 02 - 01 72 2C 66 68 07 BB 00  CPAu2.ù..r,fh.».
         100:  00 66 68 00 02 00 00 66 - 68 08 00 00 00 66 53 66  .fh....fh....fSf
         110:  53 66 55 66 68 00 00 00 - 00 66 68 00 7C 00 00 66  SfUfh....fh.|..f
         120:  61 68 00 00 07 CD 1A 5A - 32 F6 EA 00 7C 00 00 CD  ah...Í.Z2öê.|..Í
         130:  18 A0 B7 07 EB 08 A0 B6 - 07 EB 03 A0 B5 07 32 E4  . ·.ë. ¶.ë. µ.2ä
         140:  05 00 07 8B F0 AC 3C 00 - 74 09 BB 07 00 B4 0E CD  ...‹ð¬<.t.»..´.Í
         150:  10 EB F2 F4 EB FD 2B C9 - E4 64 EB 00 24 02 E0 F8  .ëòôëý+Éädë.$.àø
         160:  24 02 C3 49 6E 76 61 6C - 69 64 20 70 61 72 74 69  $.ÃInvalid parti
         170:  74 69 6F 6E 20 74 61 62 - 6C 65 00 45 72 72 6F 72  tion table.Error
         180:  20 6C 6F 61 64 69 6E 67 - 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 69   loading operati
         190:  6E 67 20 73 79 73 74 65 - 6D 00 4D 69 73 73 69 6E  ng system.Missin
         1A0:  67 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 - 69 6E 67 20 73 79 73 74  g operating syst
         1B0:  65 6D 00 00 00 63 7B 9A - 10 DA D3 09 00 00 00 00  em...c{š.ÚÓ.....
         1C0:  02 00 EE FF FF FF 01 00 - 00 00 FF FF FF FF 00 00  ..îÿÿÿ....ÿÿÿÿ..
         1D0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1E0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1F0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA  ..............Uª

Code: Select all

 Sector 0

           0:  60 65 0E 13 B0 4A 96 97 - 41 F3 20 93 AC 7E AA AE  `e..°J–—Aó “¬~ª®
          10:  81 47 40 A2 F7 BE 86 12 - F7 62 DC F3 CE 21 23 CA  .G@¢÷¾†.÷bÜóÎ!#Ê
          20:  B0 B8 9A 3A 7C 00 00 7C - 08 0F 81 0E 01 83 C5 10  °¸š:|..|.....ƒÅ.
          30:  EC F7 50 A2 8A 56 00 55 - A7 66 38 54 75 97 E5 4C  ì÷P¢ŠV.U§f8Tu—åL
          40:  70 22 46 84 C2 67 2E D2 - 04 0F A1 FB 27 AA 10 09  p"F„Âg.Ò..¡û'ª..
          50:  04 C1 64 00 86 03 88 46 - 4F FA 8F 73 5E 10 70 74  .Ád.†..FOú.s^.pt
          60:  47 66 1A 00 74 00 69 66 - 8B 76 61 68 6F 00 06 00  Gf..t.if‹vaho...
          70:  7C 68 01 00 68 10 00 B4 - 42 8A 56 00 8B F4 CD 13  |h..h..´BŠV.‹ôÍ.
          80:  3D 23 14 FB 7B 52 27 FC - 86 C2 D3 B6 CB AC CF C7  =#.û{R'ü†ÂÓ¶Ë¬ÏÇ
          90:  06 69 44 BB 06 96 BD 2F - 8D 8E E7 A0 65 28 9A C2  .iD».–½/.Žç e(šÂ
          A0:  4E 19 71 0C 80 7E 00 80 - F0 7B 16 BA B0 80 EB 84  N.q..~..ð{.º°.ë„
          B0:  55 32 E4 8A 56 00 CD 13 - 1F EB FF 81 4D FE 14 55  U2äŠV.Í..ëÿ.Mþ.U
          C0:  C9 75 4E FF 12 00 89 8D - 74 75 76 FA 90 D1 96 64  ÉuNÿ..‰.tuvú.Ñ–d
          D0:  89 83 72 B0 AB E6 09 E8 - 08 00 D9 FF 89 64 86 75  ‰ƒr°«æ.è..Ùÿ‰d†u
          E0:  00 FB B8 00 BB CD 1A 66 - 23 C0 75 3B 66 81 FB 54  .û¸.»Í.f#Àu;f.ûT
          F0:  43 50 41 75 32 81 F9 02 - 01 72 2C 66 68 07 BB 00  CPAu2.ù..r,fh.».
         100:  00 66 68 00 02 00 00 66 - 68 08 00 00 00 66 53 66  .fh....fh....fSf
         110:  53 66 55 66 68 00 00 00 - 00 66 68 00 7C 00 00 66  SfUfh....fh.|..f
         120:  61 68 00 00 07 CD 1A 5A - 32 F6 EA 00 7C 00 00 CD  ah...Í.Z2öê.|..Í
         130:  18 A0 B7 07 EB 08 A0 B6 - 07 EB 03 A0 B5 07 32 E4  . ·.ë. ¶.ë. µ.2ä
         140:  05 00 07 8B F0 AC 3C 00 - 74 09 BB 07 00 B4 0E CD  ...‹ð¬<.t.»..´.Í
         150:  10 EB F2 F4 EB FD 2B C9 - E4 64 EB 00 24 02 E0 F8  .ëòôëý+Éädë.$.àø
         160:  24 02 C3 49 6E 76 61 6C - 69 64 20 70 61 72 74 69  $.ÃInvalid parti
         170:  74 69 6F 6E 20 74 61 62 - 6C 65 00 45 72 72 6F 72  tion table.Error
         180:  20 6C 6F 61 64 69 6E 67 - 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 69   loading operati
         190:  6E 67 20 73 79 73 74 65 - 6D 00 4D 69 73 73 69 6E  ng system.Missin
         1A0:  67 20 6F 70 65 72 61 74 - 69 6E 67 20 73 79 73 74  g operating syst
         1B0:  65 6D 00 00 00 63 7B 9A - 10 DA D3 09 00 00 00 00  em...c{š.ÚÓ.....
         1C0:  02 00 EE FF FF FF 01 00 - 00 00 FF FF FF FF 00 00  ..îÿÿÿ....ÿÿÿÿ..
         1D0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1E0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1F0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 55 AA  ..............Uª

Code: Select all

 Sector 0

           0:  16 E3 C9 E3 5C 0B B8 4D - 81 7D F9 2D F0 02 15 AE  .ãÉã\.¸M.}ù-ð..®
          10:  E3 19 F3 81 0B 4D 22 42 - 9E 7E DA 38 35 98 27 CA  ã.ó..M"Bž~Ú85.'Ê
          20:  22 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 21 00 04 00 00 00 00 00  ".......!.......
          30:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 4D 00 69 00 63 00 72 00  ........M.i.c.r.
          40:  6F 00 73 00 6F 00 66 00 - 74 00 20 00 72 00 65 00  o.s.o.f.t. .r.e.
          50:  73 00 65 00 72 00 76 00 - 65 00 64 00 20 00 70 00  s.e.r.v.e.d. .p.
          60:  61 00 72 00 74 00 69 00 - 74 00 69 00 6F 00 6E 00  a.r.t.i.t.i.o.n.
          70:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          80:  A2 A0 D0 EB E5 B9 33 44 - 87 C0 68 B6 B7 26 99 C7  ¢ Ðëå¹3D‡Àh¶·&.Ç
          90:  8C 1F 45 31 48 94 37 41 - 8E 43 F4 C6 04 5B 86 3C  Œ.E1H”7AŽCôÆ.[†<
          A0:  00 08 04 00 00 00 00 00 - FF FF 9C BA 02 00 00 00  ........ÿÿœº....
          B0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 42 00 61 00 73 00 69 00  ........B.a.s.i.
          C0:  63 00 20 00 64 00 61 00 - 74 00 61 00 20 00 70 00  c. .d.a.t.a. .p.
          D0:  61 00 72 00 74 00 69 00 - 74 00 69 00 6F 00 6E 00  a.r.t.i.t.i.o.n.
          E0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
          F0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         100:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         110:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         120:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         130:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         140:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         150:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         160:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         170:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         180:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         190:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1A0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1B0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1C0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1D0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1E0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................
         1F0:  00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 - 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00  ................

ReclaiMe · Post by **ReclaiMe** » Sun Nov 13, 2011 11:10 am

Consider trying our ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery, if just for a sake of completeness. It should produce the parameter set which you can then feed to R-Studio along with the specific instructions on how to do it for your specific array; if the botched rebuild did not do too much damage to the data, which does happen sometimes.

hddguy · Post by **hddguy** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:30 am

Devices using the Oxford 936SE chipset usually implement a 512 bytes block size. Left Synchronous is normal for Lacie RAID5.

Offset can vary, but here looks like there is none.

muzicman82 · Post by **muzicman82** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:33 am

Seems pretty straight forward to me. Any ideas why I can't get reconstruction to work even on a known working RAID set of four drives from the same unit?

hddguy · Post by **hddguy** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 11:44 am

muzicman82 wrote:Seems pretty straight forward to me. Any ideas why I can't get reconstruction to work even on a known working RAID set of four drives from the same unit?

From the images you post I can see MBR with Partition identifier of EE indicating that this is followed by a EFI partition. So MBR is probably first disk, followed by disk with EFI header. 3rd disk would be the last image while the 3rd image is probably the last disk in the array. With Left Synchronous parity rotation and 512 Bytes block size, try this and let me know how it is.

I am working this out based on your images alone, I have nothing else to go on

muzicman82 · Post by **muzicman82** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 1:40 pm

Thanks and appreciate it... so far you've been more help than OWC. I'm sure this is good info to have for other users of the same chipset or enclosure. May not get to testing until this weekend.

bigdog32 · Post by **bigdog32** » Thu Apr 05, 2012 11:20 pm

So did you ever find out the parameters for your OWC RAID? Did you get your data using R-Studio?

muzicman82 · Post by **muzicman82** » Mon Apr 09, 2012 1:26 pm

Sorry I haven't reported back. Actually I will just be getting back to this problem today. I will know more very soon!

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