Safe recovery of a working RAID Array after OS drive failed

adaptecraidstoragewindows-server-2003

I'm working with a server that recently had two drives fail.

Windows Server 2003 – Standard

Array 0 (bootable) – two 35GB U320 drives in a striped set.

Array 1 – two 35GB U320 drives in a striped set.

The U320 adapter is an Adaptec 2010S.

Both of the drives that failed were in Array 0. So, I can't boot the server using them.

I have put an IDE drive into the system and installed Windows 2003 Server Std. with the Adaptec 2010S drivers.

Array 1 appears in the "Disk Management" applet. It is "Not Initialized" and "Unallocated".

If I initialize the drive, will it erase the data on the array?

Is there a safe way to get the data off of the Array that is functional?

I can make a boot disk with the adapter BIOS. Can that disk be used to access the working Array?

Best Answer

Array 1 appears in the "Disk Management" applet. It is "Not Initialized" and "Unallocated".

Are you sure, that this [logical volume] was initialized before on OS-level and data was on this array?

Are you sure, that this [logical volume] was not cleared from RAID card management?

If I initialize the drive, will it erase the data on the array?

Yep. Don't do this.

Is there a safe way to get the data off of the Array that is functional?

Adaptec is storing it's metadata in AMF format, readable with any other adaptec controller with same physical ports, but it won't help you anyway if there is no problem with controller itself. If array status is "optimal", this means that array is not degraded and it's in normal state.

So, possible issues:

  1. This isn't array 1
  2. Something's wrong with Windows drivers
  3. Array 1 was re-initialized from adapter BIOS after failure (manually)
  4. Logical volume was cleared after failure (manually)

I recommend PartedMagic distribution for analyzing block devices and recovering partitions, files.

If someone re-initialized array on adapter BIOS level and if it was "quick" method - you are saved. You just need to recover partitions - it works, I've done it many times on Adaptecs.

You can delete array and re-create it with "quick" method. Only thing you need to worry about is stripe size. It must match.

If array was re-created with full initialization - say goodbye to your data.

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