RAID 5 Recovery - iRecover Basic Procedure

[TelB]

Hiya Guys,
Device: QUAD-HDD-NAS
Firmware: G5S604120026702

Recovery system: Windows 7 with 10 internal SATA Ports

I have a QUAD-HDD-NAS (SATA) in which drive 1 has failed and am intending to try and recover the data using iRecover but need to understand the process to recover the RAID 5 system using this application.

I have since replaced drive 1 with a new similar drive but the NAS is not automatically rebuilding the NAS system. It states in the user manual that the NAS system should automatically rebuild but it does not do that.  Possibly, the RAID controller might have gone?

Can someone kindly explain how I can recover the data from the three remaining good drives please? This is appreciated as there seems to be little instruction available explaining how to do this on the device.

Using iRecover, is the process as follows;
i) Move the 3 good drives from the original RAID 5 onto a Windows 7 system
ii) Also, add another 4 new similar and formatted drives onto the Windows system
iii) use iRecover to access the 3 data drives and rebuild the RAID 5 system onto the new 4 drives

Whatever the case, preserving this data is of the utmost importance as I cannot afford to lose what is on there. I thought that by investing in a RAID5 system that my data was protected against a single drive failure.

The data is important to me.  I thought that with a RAID 5 system, I was protected against data loss.  Had I known that a RAID 5 system might have gone down thereby compromising the data I would have backed it up.  Hindsight is a great thing.  If I manage to recover this RAID 5 system, I will certainly back it up in the future.

Many many Thanks for your kind help!

Cheers

Terry Bradley

[TelB]

Ah, I have been working through the forum picking up hints and tips and noticed that your iRecover application only recovers NTFS RAID systems.  Mine was originally created using EXT2 / EXT3.  Can I just confirm that iRecover will not be suitable in my case please?

Can I ask if you know of any similar RAID 5 Recovery applications that work for Linux systems please?

As always, many Thanks! :-)

Cheers

Terry Bradley

[Tom]

iRecover can also recover data from Ext systems.

Your procedure is not entirely correct. The RAID is not rebuilt in a literal sense, it is rebuilt in memory (by iRecover) to allow iRecover to copy the data from the RAID to safety. So you'll need the remaining disks, and connect them as you describe. Then analyze the disks using the RAID recovery option, and if all goes well after the analysis is complete you'll be able to copy files from the disks to a safe place.

Another thought: why not contact the NAS manufacturer? If only one disk failed then a rebuild by the NAS should not be a problem at all: that is the main idea behind RAID. If that doesn't function as intended, you should get the manufaturer (or retailer) to help.