Software based Raid 5 and missing volume...anyone have this?

cantonracer

Hello....this is my first post...fun stuff.

I just inherited a client that has a Windows Small Business Server 2003 SP2 that was setup with 3 500 GB Sata hard drives using software Raid 5 using Disk 1, Disk 2 & Disk 3. Disk 3 failed and I replaced it with an identical hard drive. I went to device manager to fix the failed Raid 5 array and either something did what it was not supposed to or I accidentally deleted the volume. I have fixed numerous software raid based issues in the past, so I cannot imagine deleting the volume, but who knows. At this point I still had Disk 1 & Disk 2, just the operating system did not know how to handle these drives.

I then downloaded a demo software program called Disk Internals and it was able to see the Raid 5 array...I was able to see the folder structure, but I was not sure if the software would work so I opted to get Microsoft involved. All I wanted to do was recreate the volume, rip the data and setup this server correctly with no data loss and after working with Microsoft for 6 hours, what I have now is Disk 1 was a dynamic disk, it was turned to a basic disk, they used Diskprobe, tried to change the drive to be able to read from it and none of that worked. As a last resort, they used Diskprobe to turn the drive back to a dynamic disk to where now it is a foreign disk, which I can import, but have not done so because the data will get wiped (at least I believe so). I have a hunch they used a common KB article that clearly states not to do what they did on a Raid 0 or Raid 5 configuration....

Getbackdat for NTFS is able to see the file structure on Disk 1 & Disk 2, but being the spanning of the data, anything bigger than a 1KB file seems to be useless.

I have not formatted, initialized or done anything minus what Microsoft had done. I believe the data is there, just I need to get both disks to work together to recover the data.

Has anyone used software called Raid Reconstructor create an image given the scenario I have described? I need to work an expert at reconstructing Raid...I imagine such a person would resolve this without breaking a sweat.

There is no backup...small but growing photography studio that have almost 1 TB of pictures, work, etc and they are constantly burning their work to DVD's (they have almost 1000 DVD's).

Any thoughts....

Jason

dynamik

Can you post a screen shot of what shows up in disk management (under computer management)?

sprkymrk

Importing a foreign disk will not wipe the data.

Technet

A dynamic disk's status is Foreign.
Cause: The Foreign status occurs when you move a dynamic disk to the local computer from another computer running Windows 2000, Windows XP Professional, Windows XP 64-bit Edition (Itanium), or the Windows Server 2003 family of operating systems. A warning icon appears on disks that display the Foreign status.

In some cases, a disk that was previously connected to the system can display the Foreign status. Configuration data for dynamic disks is stored on all dynamic disks, so the information about which disks are owned by the system is lost when all dynamic disks fail.

Solution: Add the disk to your computer's system configuration so that you can access data on the disk. To add a disk to your computer's system configuration, import the foreign disk (right-click the disk and then click Import Foreign Disks). Any existing volumes on the foreign disk become visible and accessible when you import the disk.