Server Died Friday 13th

[brickwall53]

Hi all

Domain Controller was a HP ML 350 G4...RAID 5....4 SCSI Drives

This morning 2 of the drives failed but I could still logon to the server...Then I accidently pulled one of the good drives and that was the end of the server.

The question is it possible to recover some data from the 2 drives that were OK until I bust them. Is it possible to use a scsi/ usb adapter cable with some software to recover some data that was saved.

Ta John

[m25man]

As all of your data is written across all of your disks the answer is no.
You need all of the disks together in a an array in order to recover the data.
A single file will be written across all of the drives in a way that any 3 will have all of the data required.
Picking up a block of data from disk 1 then searching for the next block on disk 2,3 or 4 would take an eternity.

With all of the disks attached in a virtual array and the right software it's possible but the real question is where are yor backups?

[mjs_mjs]

RAID 5 can only tolerate 1 drive per array failure. So if two failed ur out of luck. To recover any data you would need 3 of your 4 disks in a working condition.

[AngryTechnician]

The last time I had two drives "fail" simultaneously it was actually a false failure detection due to a bug in the storage controller. May be worth contacting HP and see if there are any such known issues with your controller.

[burgemaster]

Our dell servers a DELL Perc 6i raid controller.... When 2 drives are flashing away as failed I find that they are actually ok. When I call DELL to ask why it happens they just tell me that "Sometimes they just drop out of the raid". I have to then re-add them and then all is good. Good luck!

[brickwall53]

Thanks for the replys

Yep Got a backup

I have fired it up again with only 2 scsi drives in place to see what would hapeen.

It started doing a chkdsk and has now been recovering orphened files for the last few hours

Is this a good sign

Ta John