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Raid 5 server crashes

My raid 5 server nas from iomega has crashed the technical department say its the operating system as we had a message on screen and they told us.
Any way they are now saying they are sending out another hard drive with the o/s but when i plug that in i am going to loose all the data.
I was under the impression if i had raid 5 what is happening is each hard drive sync to another so if one goes down the other continues.

But now if i install o/s i loose all my data.
I have a server gateway and the drives are on D, E, F and i have rebuilt the o/s and never lost the data.

Maybe i am misuderstand the raid technology.......

Any clarification would be appreciated before i have to rely on my backups...

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wiltech_consultant

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TRACEYMARY

ASKER

that what i was thinking to, i give them a call again

Thanks

TRACEYMARY

ASKER

I just read this
http://www.grc.com/tip/clickdeath.thm
but this mentions zip drives and jaz ? not sure what the jaz ......think the site is more talking about tapes ...and not hard drives.
What do you think...run this utility ?

Cheers

wiltech_consultant

I don't think that it would have too much to do with the Network Attached Storage device you are using.
ZIP and JAZ are removable media drives. As the devices have removable discs (but the heads remain inside the unit) occasionally the heads can loose alignment.
If the heads have lost alignment, then they could corrupt or damage any new media that is inserted.
In the old days where 800k floppies were popular, I occasionally encountered drives that would do the same thing... one would just have to remember not to put your master system installation disks in that computer (!)

1. This apparent problem appears to be with the removable storage mechanism of ZIP and JAZ drives. Not with self-contained hard disk units contained inside your Network Attached Storage device.
2. The worst it can do is corrupt your data further. The best it can do is identify that physical problems exist on some of your disks (though this may not necessarily be correct, if the softwre is intended for different drives).
3. The article appears to be somewhat fear-provoking.

In any event, my opionion of the program, is that it's purpose is simply to promote the purchase and use of the author's commercial disk-repair software.

HTH