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NDR / Devices and media / Server and array recovery

Servers · arrays that have stopped

Server data recovery for Nottingham. The server will not boot, and the disks are usually the healthy part.

Sound drives with failed machinery around them: that is what nearly every server here turns out to be. Cards that have lost track of what is really in the bays, consoles with two expensive buttons, and caches holding writes that never reached a platter before the mains failed. Clones of all members are created before any repairs are attempted, so all subsequent repairs happen on the clones while your controller stays installed. All of it comes back together (mail stores, shares, guests, databases and so on). From £500 + VAT per array, NAS box or server, one figure in writing following the free diagnosis. A Worksop based distributor and a bioscience company on Pennyfoot Street in Nottingham have both posted in from the same type of chassis.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs Free diagnosis first, then a single price, in writing Parcels come in from Derby, Lincoln and Loughborough

Ask an engineer and the first look is free
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What the server's symptom points to.

Not yours? Open the fault finder →
What is happeningWhat usually causes itWhat that means for you
The PERC screen: Foreign Configuration DetectedThe members and the card do not agree on the array, so it stops instead of guessing. Nothing has gone yetGive the console no answer at all
1786 on an HP: Drive Array Recovery NeededA rebuild has started, and may have halted part-way throughSwitch it off. Clones before anything else
Amber lights on the bays after a power cutSome half-written writes were interrupted, and whatever was in the cache at the time is unknown. The array's own description of its state is still intactDo not power it back up
It boots, but the data volume is not thereEither the card's configuration or the file system directly above it. Whichever it is, all the sectors below remain intactComes back, as a rule
The RAID controller itself has goneBay order, stripe size and parity rotation are stored on every memberYou do not need an identical card
Data has been copied off, but none of the guests or databases will launchA copy existing and a copy being coherent are two very different things, and only the second kind will launchFrom there it is database recovery work
How to pack and post it: get a quote first, then pack the drive tightly enough to prevent movement inside the box, declare a value based on the data and not the equipment itself, and send it to the intake lab using a tracked service. Postage back to you is included. Would you like to talk the packing through with an engineer before sealing the box? Call us first. More detail is in our packing and postage guide.

The map of the array travels on the members.

PERC and MegaRAID controllersAn open format, DDF, is what both cards place in the closing sectors of a member. The clones give it up readily, and reassembly can then go ahead with your controller left where it is, bolted into the server.
Smart Array cards from HPHP does it differently. Each member contains RIS structures at its head, and the parity block stays on one member for a run of stripe rows before moving to the next. This is known as "delayed parity", which is not the rotation assumed by a standard preset. Aim a default preset at that and what you end up building is a volume the server has never held.
A prompt where both answers hurtAnswer this one at your peril. Import can lay stale metadata across good stripes; Clear removes the description from all disks and leaves nothing in place to put it back. Take the clones first and the prompt has no power left to harm you.
Writes the cache never flushedWhen battery-backed memory captures a write, that write is immediately reported complete, long before any platter has seen it. Cut power to the server mid-flush and it is the file system itself that fails, silently, without displaying an error message. Reason enough to clone before trying anything else.

From the parcel arriving to the files going home.

01

Booked in the day it arrives, and the first look is on us Free

Your case number is assigned when the item is received. Then an engineer works out what went wrong (no charge). At this point, you receive a basic summary of which parts are recoverable and which are not. You also receive a single written quote for the price of the recovery. Accept the quoted price or turn it down, and there is no obligation to pay anything.

The first look is freeOne fixed figure, in writingNo charge at this point
02

The server stays exactly as it is

Power down the server first. The drives then come out one at a time, each labelled with its bay number on removal. Do not respond to any prompts from the console. Here, purpose-built imaging hardware captures each member independently (including members the card had already refused), and no file is opened until the final clone has completed.

Every member imaged separatelyIncluding the ones the card threw out
03

The array is rebuilt in software

The clones include their DDF or RIS structures. Once these are extracted, the geometry of the original array is available: stripe size, RAID level, which bay contained which member and, on a parity array, the direction of rotation. With that information the array can be built in software, and the failed card is no longer anyone's problem.

The layout read out of the membersYour controller never leaves the machine
04

A clone is not yet a working volume.

Repairs are applied to the reassembled clone and never to the drives you posted, regardless of what was stored in the original array: NTFS or ReFS, ext4 or XFS, a VMFS datastore. Then comes real testing: guests booted, shares mounted, databases attached, individual files opened and read.

Repairs made on clones onlyMounted and booted to prove it
05

The file list comes before the bill

A complete file list will be provided before any invoicing. Simply say "yes" or "no" to what we found: yes means it is billed, no means it is not, and in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. What we find is posted to you on media purchased specifically for your case, at no additional cost to you. We consider the process complete once you have opened those files yourself on your own computer.

Nothing is charged until you agree the figureNew media, bought in for your jobWe pay to send it home

What comes in most often

  • Different makes don't keep the map in the same place: RIS sits at the head of an HP member, whereas DDF (the format used by PERC and MegaRAID) lies in the very last sectors. Everything you pull off the wrong end of a disk is simply a guess.
  • A disk previously rejected by the card still counts: even though a member was rejected weeks ago, it may be the only place certain areas still read, so each clone is compared to the others byte by byte. Nothing here is taken on trust.
  • Default presets get Smart Array wrong: parity blocks on an HP array stay on one member for a run of consecutive stripe rows before they rotate (a delayed-parity method), so standard tools hand back a volume your server never had. Assembly has to follow HP's own scheme.
  • We ask about your cache battery early: the actual state of your file system depends on whether writes held in write-back cache ever made it onto a platter, and that is settled before anyone is given an expectation to carry.

What both buttons actually do: Import treats the foreign description as true and writes it over whatever configuration your card currently holds. Clear removes that description from every member, leaving nothing behind to recreate it from. One keystroke does either, and no warning is displayed. So hold on to full clones, and neither button press can take files from you. On jobs of this kind, cloning is not merely one step in a multi-step process; the entire remainder of the work relies on it. Arrays, NAS boxes and servers start at £500 + VAT. Once the free look is done, that cost is fixed in writing. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data.

One of these, from start to finish.

NG · NTG-2026-1966ON THE LOG ✓

The cache battery was flat; the practice database still opened whole

A prolonged power cut had drained the cache battery. Once the power returned, the controller asked the office a question which nobody there could safely answer, so it remained unanswered. None of the member disks were worked on directly: they were cloned, and the array's metadata was pulled from those clones to determine the parity order. The rebuild then ran over the clones, and what opened at the end was the entire practice database, including the last write the cache had been holding.

The database opened in full5 days between arrival and return

What helps, and what does damage.

Worth doing first

  • Photograph whatever the controller displays
  • Label every drive with its bay position
  • Send the whole set, apparently finished ones as well
  • Say what the server ran: SQL, Exchange, guests, shares

What makes it harder

  • Choosing Import, or choosing Clear
  • Fitting a spare and starting a rebuild
  • Flashing new firmware onto the card now
  • Powering the server up before clones exist

Answers before you spend anything.

Our server will not start. Is everything gone?

Rarely. What has failed is typically a layer above the disks themselves: the card's record of the array, the metadata stored on each member disk, or a file system corrupted beneath both. Do two things (turn the power off, and leave the console's prompts unanswered) and when the disks arrive at a bench you will still be in the same good position you are in now.

'Foreign Configuration Detected' — what is it telling me?

The members' metadata has stopped describing the array the card expects. Swapping the card, seating a member disk in the wrong bay, or letting a faulty controller carry on will each produce that prompt. Halting there is proper behaviour, not a fault. Import writes to your disks, and so does Clear, so take clones before pressing either one. Once you have clones, whichever button is pressed, no file belonging to you is at risk.

Do you need the RAID card as well as the disks?

No. Every member disk contains a description of the array. PERC and MegaRAID record theirs as DDF, which is a published format, whereas HP uses its own RIS structures. Both can be read from the clones. At that point the array can be built in software, so you keep the card in the machine and can rebuild the server around it later.

Will our databases and our virtual machines run afterwards?

Generally, yes, though this is two separate tasks rather than one. First the reassembled volume has to yield a complete VMDK or a complete MDF. Persuading a hypervisor to mount the former, or SQL Server to attach the latter, is the other task, and the database recovery page on this site describes it.

Start here if the same thing is happening to yours.

A RAID 5 rebuild that went wrong → Mirrored RAID 1 sets → Asus and HP laptops → The full device list →

Switched off, a drive cannot get any worse.

The look costs nothing. It gives you a file listing of what opened and what did not, along with the cost of finishing the job, in writing, before anything chargeable begins. In most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Do not switch the drive on until you have that listing.

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Get a quote, then send it Posting it to Manchester