Help please to restore the failed raid

Here are a couple of sites that explain the different configurations of RAID. The You Tube explanation is more detailed and helps to understand the various configurations.
RAID 0 RAID 1 RAID 5 RAID 10 Explained with Diagrams
What is RAID 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 and 10 1 0

That's probably because RAID 5 only tolerates 1 HD failure, (unless you have hot spares, in which case you can have many failures -provided only one fails at the same time...).

RAID 5 arrays can tolerate no more than one member drive failure.

When you restored to factory setting you have reset the RAID configuration & probably lost all the data

Raid O is no RAID. Data is lost if the hard drive failed. Always use RAID 1 (mirrored) for OS and RAID 5 (striped) for DATA. That's 5 drives your server should shave been configured with.

Depending on the RAID setup you have for your server. Best thing to do is search for "Dell Open Manage" software for your server and install it https://www.dell.com/support/home/us/en/04/drivers/driversdetails?driverId=R108443&osCode=WNET&productCode=poweredge-4400. Once installed it will give you all the information about your hardware. you should b able to rebuild RAID with same size drive if previous drive is bad, RAID will build automatically and take a long time to complete,

Hi there, Sorry to break the bad news, but when one hard drive fails in a RAID 0 configuration, all data is lost. Your only chance is to take it to a professional data recovery center, where you could be charged hundreds, or thousands of dollars for a data restore. Seagate will do these recoveries for you. RAID 0 has no redundancy, unfortunately. Sorry about that, Alex

The RAID configuration depends upon how many hard drives you have (same size and make) and which RAID level configuration your want ie. RAID 0, ot RAID 5 or a combination of RAID 0 and 1 etc.

For further RAID information, check out these WEB sites.
http://codebetter.com/raymondlewallen/2005/06/29/information-on-raid-configurations/
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/article/393

How the RAID is configured will depends upon your your RAID controller.

First, buy an external storage device, at least 80GB (although it's currently difficult to find any _smaller_ size!) and make a file-by-file, folder-by-folder, backup of your 73GB of "data".

Second, buy another external storage device, and do a Google-search for "drive image freeware".
Pick one of those applications, and do a "image" backup to this second external storage device.

Third, disconnect the 3 "old" drives, carefully label them, and set them aside.

Fourth, connect the 3 "new" drives, delete the old RAID-5 array definition,
and create a new RAID-5 array definition.

Fifth, do an "image restore" from the second external storage device to the new array.

If you have any problems, all you need to do to "back-out" is to:
* disconnect the "new" drives
* reconnect the "old" drives
* delete the "new" array definition
* redefine the "old" array definition

and you're back to the "old" configuration.

Unfortunately, a three disk RAID 5 can only tolerate a single drive failure. Is it possible that disk 0 and disk 1 were reversed? If so, then you might be dealing with only one failed drive and might be able to rebuild the RAID if you get disks back where they belong.

Otherwise, you will need to send the disks off to a data recovery service and hope for the best. This is only viable if the data is very valuable as this will be very expensive. Typically more than $1000 just to evaluate and diagnose.

Hi Chris,

How many drives are part of the array and what type are they? Are the drives making any unusual sounds like clicking or screeching? If not, then you should be able to recover the data. If the drives are making clicking sounds, you will probably need a professional data recovery service that specializes in Raid 5 data recovery to help you.

If the controller shows that only 1 drive is bad, you should be able to rebuild it by replacing that drive. If the controller shows all the drives are bad, then it is most likely a problem with the Raid 5 controller itself. In this case, you could try putting the drives in a working version of the same enclosure/controller.

Check the obvious also, like loose connections to the drives. Whatever you do, dont force a rebuild as this will probably result in permanent data loss.

Wesley Gill
Gillware Inc.
Raid Recovery Info