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Recover data from RAID1 disk

Hi all,

I have HP ML150 server with two 500 GB SATA Hard Drives. The server had CentOS installed, and hosted web application and a MySQL database as a backend which was synced with another server.

Yesterday, the server crashed due to a failed motherboard. I did have a backup server with which I replaced the failed one, with database and application re synced, with everything working fine. However, there was a samba share on the failed server with MS Access application which wasn't synced with the backup server.

I need to recover access database files from hard drives, but my server wouldn't power on due to motherboard problem.

Can you give me some advice regarding data recovery from the disks which were RAID members, and which tools could I use get the data from the disks.

Thank you

Paul MacDonald

It seems like the easiest thing to do would be to buy an identical replacement motherboard. If that's not feasible, another motherboard with the same (type of) RAID controller on it might suffice.

Jeff Perry

Yes you should be able to import the foriegn Raid array on a compatible Raid controller.

Ideally you would do this on a separate server.

slakic

ASKER

I'ma affraid that is not an option, since the time is an issue, and the process of acquirement of the motherboard would last for weeks

BillBondo

I used getdataback from runtime software once to recover excel and other files

slakic

ASKER

When connected to Windows machine, disk is recognized as a Logical volume group member, and inaccessible, which rules out getdataback.

Lavi Shiffman

On which RAID controller was the old server based? If it was based on the motherboard RAID controller, you can simply connect the 2 disks from the OLD server to the NEW one and copy the data from there.

If you used a dedicated RAID controller on the OLD server move it, along with the disks to the NEW server.

Member_2_231077

Since it was only RAID 1 you can probably mount a single disk on another machine without RAID and read it. if it's the Intel chipset RAID it doesn't write the metadata at the front of the media so the filesystem will start at the same place it starts without RAID.

slakic

ASKER

This is a HP E200 RAID controller, but anyhow, I didn't manage to mount it on Windows nor Linux machine.

Lavi Shiffman

As I recall the E200 is a PCI-e card that you can connect to any standard motherboard. Can you move this adapter from the old server and install it on the new one? If this possible, all you have to do is attach the disks from the old server and extract the needed data.

Member_2_231077

E200 will write metadata to the beginning of the disks, so that will confuse any non-RAID controller. Any other SAS Smart Array controller (P400 etc) will read this config info from the disks and present the logical disk but if you haven't got one then getdataback should still be able to skip past the metadata and find the file system. efaults won't work though since the FAT table is offset by (I think) one sector.

slakic

ASKER

Do you know if there's some Linux based tools for recovering data from RAID drives?

slakic

ASKER

Anyone?

Member_2_231077

Gpart might work, since it's RAID 1 the only problem is the metadata is offsetting the partition table and superblock - http://www.unixwiz.net/techtips/recovering-ext2.html#findpart . Image the disk first, UBCD has imaging tools - http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

slakic

ASKER

Could you elaborate on the imaging the disk please?

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Member_2_231077

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