RAID buys redundancy, not immortality — and when an array fails it usually fails badly, because the thing that was protecting you (the controller, the parity, the rebuild) is the thing that broke. We reassemble failed RAID data recovery services jobs of every level: a RAID 0 with a dead member, a RAID 5 that lost a second disk mid-rebuild, a RAID 6 hit by a controller fault, or a RAID 10 with the wrong disks pulled. Whether it’s a NAS, a server or a bare array, the diagnosis is free and no-recovery-no-fee applies.
A forced rebuild onto a degraded array is the most common way good data is lost for good. Stop, label the disks and their order, and let us image before anything is written back.
Most RAID disasters are a second failure on top of a first that went unnoticed. A RAID 5 quietly loses a disk, keeps running, and then a second disk fails weeks later — now the array is below its redundancy and drops offline. Other times it’s the controller: a failed card or motherboard scrambles the array metadata, or a rebuild is started with the disks in the wrong order and overwrites the parity. And a RAID 0 has no redundancy at all, so a single dead member takes the whole set down. None of these are fixed by the controller’s own rebuild — that’s usually what finishes the job.
The array is never touched live. Each member disk is imaged individually onto our own storage, and from those images we work out the RAID parameters by hand — the disk order, the stripe size, the parity rotation and any offset. The array is then virtually reassembled from the images and your files are extracted from the reconstructed volume, with the original disks left exactly as they arrived. Because we rebuild from copies rather than the disks themselves, a mistake in reconstruction costs nothing — we simply try again.
We handle RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10 and nested and hybrid layouts, on hardware controllers, motherboard RAID and software RAID alike — Dell PERC, HP Smart Array, LSI/Broadcom, Adaptec, Synology SHR, Windows Storage Spaces and Linux mdadm. Send every disk, clearly labelled with its bay position, and the controller or unit if you can, so we can match the exact configuration.
Frequently, yes. A second disk seldom dies completely in one go, and we can usually image enough of it to recover the parity and rebuild the array. It’s a more involved recovery than a single-disk failure, but a long way from hopeless — send every disk, including the ones flagged as failed.
Yes — a dead controller leaves healthy disks stranded, and we rebuild the array from the disks themselves rather than relying on the controller. We just need the disks in their original order, and the controller or server if the configuration is unusual.
No. A rebuild onto a degraded array, or one started with disks in the wrong order, is the single most common cause of permanent RAID data loss. Power it down and let us image every disk before anything is written back.
Yes — whether it’s a bare array, a NAS or a full server, we image the member disks and reassemble the array off the hardware. For servers, keep the drive-bay order intact and, where possible, send the whole machine.
A free diagnosis first, always — then a fixed written quote before any work begins, and no fee at all on most jobs if the data doesn’t come back. RAID and server recoveries are quoted after diagnosis, as the price depends on the number of disks and the nature of the failure — but the figure is always fixed in writing before any chargeable work begins. Drop your device at our Leeds address in The Pinnacle, or post it in fully insured from anywhere in Yorkshire; whichever route it takes, it’s handled in-house by our own engineers and never outsourced.
The diagnosis is free, the quote is fixed in writing, and most jobs carry no fee unless your data comes back. Stop any rebuild, keep the disk order, and get them to us — that protects what’s recoverable.