 Hello everybody! Watch this video to find out how to recover data from a RAID array after a controller failure, and you will see how to create a RAID 5.0 E system with the help of an ADAPTEC ASR6805D controller, what to do if one or several disks within the array failed, and how to restore the last information after a controller failure. And even if the controller is dead. Hello friends! If you need to recover deleted data, view or restore removed browser history, Hetman software products will help you. Follow the link in the description, download the necessary program for free, install it and analyze the disk. The utility will show you the data you can recover, so you will be able to view it or get it back. In our channel and blog you will find solutions to any problem, from installing an operating system or configuring it to fixing possible bugs and errors or optimizing mobile gadgets. Our specialists will answer any questions you ask in your comments under the videos or articles. Losing important data is something that you can never predict. Although RAID 5.0 is one of the most reliable solutions to store data among other disk array types, it can't guarantee 100% protection against data loss. At any time, one or several disks may fail, and this is also true about the controller or other hardware. First of all, let's explore the process of creating a RAID system, the important aspects to be considered when building it and the settings required to make data recovery possible. Our RAID will consist of six disks working with the controller Adaptec ASR6805T. In order to access the controller's BIOS after hardware initialization, you should press the key shortcut Ctrl A, while the computer is booting. In the menu, select Array Configuration Utility. After that, you need to initialize the disks in order to tell the controller which of them will be used in the array. Open Initialize Drives. Use the space or insert key to select every disk, and then press Enter. As a result, you will see a notification warning you that information on all initialized disks will be erased. Hit Yes to confirm your decision. After initialization, we can get down to business, so open Create Array. Select the disks that your RAID will consist of and press Enter. Now, it's time to configure some properties. Some of them are really important and it's better to memorize them. You will need this information later when you try to recover data from the disks. Design the array type, its name and size, block size, cache and settings, and so on. That's all. The array is built. Now, let's find out how to replace a disk that failed. At this stage, we are going to simulate a situation when a single hard disk fails. RAID 5 is designed in such a way that it remains operable if one of the disks breaks down. After a drive fails, the array becomes degraded, and while the computer is booting, you will see a message like this. Before taking any action, you should back up all important information, because virtually anything may happen during the array rebuilding process. One more disk may fail, the process may freeze, or there might be a hardware issue. But all of those nasty things can result in total loss of data. A bit later, I'll show you what to do if the worst thing has already happened. But at the moment, let's just rebuild the array. Open a new disk to the controller, turn on the computer, and open controller properties. Your first step is to initialize the new disk, then add it to the array. Open the menu to access the line manageries, press Ctrl-S, and open the management page. Press the space key to select the new disk and hit Yes to confirm your decision. It should start the rebuilding process. From now on, you can boot the server in normal mode and continue work. A complete rate rebuild is quite a long process, and it depends on a number of things – the performance of your controller, disks, current controller load, disk load, etc. It seems that the process will be much faster if you don't choose to start using the array as soon as the new disk has been added. If possible, let the controller finish the rebuilding process and only then start using the array the way you prefer. But what should we do if several disks fail at once? The operating system won't boot after you added a new disk, or if the controller breaks down. That's when you need headman-rate recovery to help you. This tool lets you recover data from crash-rate systems or disks that were used in such array. It reads all the information about the controller, the motherboard, or the software used to create a disk array. Your product can rebuild the crash-rate and it lets you copy all important information from there. When the controller fails, you won't be able to access the information on the disks. When connected directly to the computer, the operating system will ask you to format the disks for further use. In this case, you will either need a controller of the same model, which doesn't guarantee the success of this operation, though, or a software tool capable of uniting these disks into a RAID system, displaying and restoring your data. So connect the hard disks to a Windows computer. The operating system will be displayed them as raw and suggests to either initialize or format them. No matter what, don't choose anything. This way or another, you are taking the risk to lose all the data for good. Instead, download, install, and run headman-rate recovery. In fact, a lot of service information is written to the disks included into a RAID system. What disks make up the array, in what order they are connected to the controller, the RAID type, block size, and the procedure of writing blocks, number of disk groups, and the data on the array size. Having collected all the available information from the system and connected disks, the utility displays the automatically built arrays immediately, as soon as the program starts. In most cases, the program manages to restore RAID on the fly and suggests you to analyze the identified partitions and save any available data. Open the Drive Manager tab and find the line RAID arrays to select a storage system from the list. Right-click on it and choose Open. Try Fast Scan first. If the disk structure is not damaged, the scan type will suffice. If the fast scan can't find the missing data, then go for full analysis. When it's over, the program will display the results in the right side of the window. You can see that the program has built the RAID without effort, and it can now display all the information still available on the disks. In this case, you don't have to buy a controller of the same model. And as we know, even when you have it, there is no guarantee you can build the RAID again without losing its information. If you don't have enough SATA ports to connect all the disks, there is an easy solution – buy an expansion card. There are numerous and easy-to-find, for example, on AliExpress. To have all the disks connected to the computer, we used an expansion card, model Marvel MV 91 XX, with six ports. Initially, the computer was only able to detect four disks. And to make it see all the disks connected to the expansion card, we had to install corresponding drivers. Expansion cards may have two, four, six or eight ports. Using a card like that, you can connect up to eight disks. And if we also use the remaining vacant ports on the motherboard, it all comes up to a huge array of over 10 drives. Now let's simulate a situation when does the controller and one of the hard disks fail. If one of the disks fails in this RAID time, the array remains completely operable. But when things get from bad to worse and the controller is out of order, there is nothing you can do without specialized software tools. Let's see how our program copes with this problem. Connect the remaining five disks directly to the motherboard of our computer, turn it on and run the program. Hetman RAID Recovery detected the RAID type automatically. Right-click on it and open the array. At first, select Fast Scan. The program can recognize all the files that have been written to the array. To have them restored, select the necessary files and click Recovery. Specify where to save the information and click Recovery again. When the process is over, you will find the recovered files in the folder you have chosen for saving them. Now let's simulate a situation when does the controller and two of the hard disks fail. In such case, this RAID type gets out of order, even though the controller is okay. In fact, the information is lost. Replacing the failed hard disks is not going to change anything. Alright, we have four disks connected to the motherboard directly. In your case, if you don't know for sure which disk failed, it's better to connect all the disks that your RAID consists of. In my case, I'm only trying to simulate a situation with two hard disks failing, so I just disconnect them. Let's start the program, and you can see that even in this case, Hetman RAID Recovery managed to detect the RAID type automatically. If your RAID is not on the list, you can still use RAID constructor. In our case, the RAID type was detected automatically in the constructor. To rebuild the array in manual mode, you will need all the information you have on this RAID. Previously in this video, I emphasized the importance of memorizing the properties when creating a RAID system. If the program has detected the array type automatically, view the information in the next window to make sure that all the properties were detected correctly. This is the factor that determines how much data can be recovered. If one of the properties is incorrect, change it. If everything is correct, click Add and scan the disk array. You can see that the program has found the data and some of the information is damaged. In this case, you can try running full analysis, and it may help you find even more data. Now select the files you want to restore, click Recovery, specify the directory where you'd like to save the data, and click Recovery again. When the process is over, all the information will be placed into the folder you have chosen for saving it. In the end, we managed to recover a certain share of important information from a RAID system with a dead controller. It is a good result, because if two disks within such RAID fail, it typically renders the whole array inoperable, and all the data might be gone. So that is all for now. Hopefully this video was useful. Remember to click the Like button and subscribe to our channel. Push the bell button to receive notifications, and never miss new videos. Leave comments to ask questions. Thank you for watching. And good luck.