HOw to recover a raid 5 that was working with win server 2008
 

Hi, we just lost our win server 2008 r2,
All of a sudden the server turned off and now each time we turn it on we get the message,
"System cannot find operative system" that's it.

I checked inside the server I found three physicall HDDs Sata, I understand a raid 5 was in place.

I do not know what to do to recover very important data inside this raid.
Please your help.
regards,

For many windows issues I have a few live cd's that are based on BartsPE or other. The newer DVD based windows might be used for some issues. Repair and command prompt. They might allow mounting of the system drive for 2008.

It is possible to run a software raid in windows but my guess is that it is a real hardware array. Do you see a raid bios choice when you boot from power off? That is a good starting place.

I'd boot a live opensuse. They tend to have good hardware support.

For the most part a hardware array should be seen either by windows or linux based on the raid bios.

Now if it was a faux or fake raid it might be easy or impossible. Some linux distro's read them and some don't. Some read it all wrong so you can't tell what is what.

If you are lucky, the raid will be healthy but the file system for the Windows C: partition is damaged. In this is the case and your data is on another partition, you may be able to backup the partition.

When you boot, do you see a message during post about pressing a key for raid setup. This will be pre-windows or even Linux and should provide more info about the health of the raid array.

Knowing what hardware you have raid wise will help determine if you need to load a kernel module to see and control the raid device.

3ware is one of the few raid cards that isn't at least partially software raid (according to dban readme file).

What do you think about RAID RECONSTRUCTOR v4.25??

I haven't heard of it. Before doing anything potentially destructive, gather information that might help solve the problem.

What is the controller? Is the raid created by the controller and Windows installed on top of it?
Do you have indicator lights when one of the drives goes bad?

For raid5, you can replace one of the three drives and rebuild the array. If two drives go bad, then you can't recover.
However, once at work, we had a baffle go bad, and the temperature inside dropped to -20 F causing the drives to freeze up and all of the drives were marked bad by the controller. We were able to recover by entering a command to "pretend" the array was OK. It actually was OK and that trick worked.

You probably have a raid setup screen. It is important to find this out before running a third party program.