A failed RAID is bad news. A RAID that gets touched by well-meaning people is often a disaster. In our lab, we see the aftermath of good intentions every week – and in about 30% of RAID 5 recoveries that reach our facility, a failed rebuild attempt made the case significantly worse.
If your array just failed, take one minute to read these seven rules. They could be the difference between getting your data back and losing it forever.
Don’t start the rebuild without a verified backup
The rebuild process recalculates the missing data from the remaining drives and parity. If a drive has hidden errors – or if the wrong drive is included – the rebuild can fail and corrupt more data. If you don’t have a verified, up-to-date backup, don’t press the button.
Don’t take OEM support advice as gospel
Your hardware vendor’s tech support has one job: get the hardware back online. Saving your data is usually not part of that job. “Re-initialize the unit” is a common suggestion – and it erases everything. Talk to a data recovery engineer before you follow vendor instructions that destroy data.
Don’t rebuild unless you know exactly what failed
Before rebuilding, you need to know which drives failed, why they failed, and – most importantly – when they failed. RAID recalculation that incorporates old data from the wrong drive will corrupt ALL of your data. This is one of the most common causes of unrecoverable damage we see.
Don’t let the OS run CHKDSK or fsck on a rebuilt array
In 95% of the cases we see, when someone brings a “repaired” RAID back online and the OS wants to run check disk, the rebuild went wrong. CHKDSK/fsck then produces even more irreversible corruption. If the array didn’t come back clean, stop and call an engineer.
Don’t shuffle drives between slots or units
RAID arrays know which drive belongs in which slot. Moving drives between slots – or into another identical unit – can confuse the array metadata and destroy the very structure we need to reconstruct. Label every drive and keep it in its slot.
Don’t try DIY recovery software on a RAID
Consumer recovery tools are built for single drives, not arrays. Running them on a RAID can overwrite stripe and parity data that a professional would use to rebuild the volume. If it’s business-critical, don’t experiment.
Don’t wait
The first hours after a failure decide how much data survives. Every power-on, every rebuild attempt, every scan adds wear to failing drives. Call an expert while the drives are still readable.
The bottom line: when a RAID fails, the smartest move is usually to power it down and call a professional. Our engineers answer 844-223-7243 around the clock, and the evaluation is free.
Call 844-223-7243 — engineers answer 24/7 — or start a case online.
No data, no fee — if we can’t recover your data, you don’t pay