RAID 0 (striping) recovery

A RAID 0 (also known as a stripe set or striped volume) splits data evenly across two or more disks (striped) with no parity information for redundancy. It is important to note that RAID 0 was not one of the original RAID levels and provides no data redundancy. RAID 0 is normally used to increase performance, although it can also be used as a way to create a small number of large virtual disks out of a large number of small physical ones.

A RAID 0 can be created with disks of differing sizes, but the storage space added to the array by each disk is limited to the size of the smallest disk. For example, if a 120 GB disk is striped together with a 100 GB disk, the size of the array will be 200 GB.

To Recover the RAID:

Ensure the problem RAID drives are properly connected to your computer. Ensure that you can hear the drives spinning and that there are no signs (or sounds) of a physically failed drive;
Run Recover My Files v4, select the "Recover Drive" path and click Next;

In the Drive Selection window, click on the button. This opens the RAID configuration window. Click here for a summary of functions in this window.;

In the Add Raid window, select the type of RAID you are trying to recover and click the button to add the RAID drives (Note: if you have taken image copies of the drive [DD, RAW, EnCase etc] use the "Add Image..." button);

Set the "Type" of RAID to "software".

Press the to test to see if it is a valid software RAID.

A valid software RAID will show with green ticks on the added drives (or image files):

If it is not a valid software RAID, you will receive the message below. In this case follow the hardware RAID instructions:

Set the "Type" of RAID to "software".

Press the to test to see if it is a valid software RAID.

A valid software RAID will show with green ticks on the added drives (or image files):

If it is not a valid software RAID, you will receive the message below. In this case follow the hardware RAID instructions:

If you know the parameters of your hardware RAID drive:

Set the RAID type to "hardware";
Add the drives (or image files) in the correct sequence;
Enter the Stripe Size and Offset Sectors;
Click OK to add the RAID drive and then proceed with the search.

If you do NOT know the parameters of your hardware RAID drive:

Recover My Files will attempt to identify the way in which the RAID was configured. To do this:

Set the RAID type to "hardware";
Add the drives (or image files)in the correct sequence, or, if the correct sequence is unknown, add them in the order that is believe to be most correct;
Click on the "Find Layout" button to find a suggested configuration. A suggested configuration is indicated by a green tick next to each added drive.

Important:

A suggested configuration is based on the information available from the drives. However, due to the complexity of a RAID structure, there may be more than one configuration that returns this results. A suggested configuration should be tested by continuing with the recovery to successfully locate missing files.

File Layout did not return a suggested configuration, or,
The suggested configuration did not result in a successful recovery

If the Find Layout button did not return green ticks for each added drive, or the continued recovery from a suggested configuration did not work, try the following:

click on the "Probable Solutions" tab to view suggested configurations for the RAID;
change the "stipe size", RAID Options and drive sequence as suggested;
click the "Test Layout" button to test the modified configuration;
re-try the recovery.

Once added, select and search the RAID drive

Once the RAID has been added to the list of available drives, select the RAID as the drive to search and click Next:

The RAID drive can now be search like any other drive on your system. In most cases, because of the initial problem with the RAID, it will be best to run the Recover Drive mode. However, it is also possible to search the drive in Recover Files mode.

RAID 0 Recovery