RAID server failure is one of the dreaded work hazards you may have to face sometimes at your workplace. You tend to become incapable and powerless when you are unable to access data with a click.
Data on a RAID array or volume can becomes inaccessible due to any of the following reasons:
• A faulty RAID controller
• Multiple hard drive crash
• Malfunctioning upgrade or faulty striping
• Defects with the MFT mount points.
• RAID controller failure or configuration changed
• Adding incompatible hard drives
• Hardware conflicts
• Software corruption
• Virus infection, software and operating system upgrades
In these above conditions, the following steps should be taken immediately to increase chances of getting critical files back:
• Shutdown the server and turn off the system. Do not try to reboot again. This may cause serious damage to your hard drive.
• Do not attempt to recover data by yourself, friends or PC repair shops. This may result in permanent loss.
• Do not continue to attempt a forced rebuild if you have already replaced a failed drive and tried to rebuild the array, but still can't access your data. This may wipe out your data. RAID data recovery utilities and software are not designed to restore data or rebuild RAID arrays from failing hard drives. This requires specialized equipment and professional training.
• Swapping hard drives or re-ordering drives in a multiple drive RAID array may cause overwriting the striping and parity. This makes it nearly difficult to reconstruct your RAID array and salvage your company's vital data.
• Seeking professional help from professionally trained data recovery engineers is the sanest solution. Most data can be recovered from crashed hard drives and malfunctioning RAID servers by these experts only.
What do Professional data recovery engineers do?
Professional data recovery engineers have specialized equipment, a thorough knowledge of hex, drive structures, MFT mount points and offsets.
The Professional engineers’ initial diagnosis determines whether each media device is accessible to their lab equipment. From all the data accessible to them from each media, they make a raw image onto a new media to help them analyse and assess the data loss. If some of the media is difficult to get hold of, they will test the components and closely check its internal condition to assess the level of physical damage sustained. The damaged components include electronics, read/write heads, magnets, drive motors and head assemblies.
The raw images of the entire server’s media are used for logical recovery by examining the low-level data sectors. Determination of both the exact layout of volumes, which span or are striped across multiple drives, is a must. Necessary fixes to the file system structures are to be decided upon to get access to important data.
Servers that work on multiple drives are usually “destriped” onto a different media so that file system repairs can be done and the data files retrieved. It may be necessary to extract data directly from one or more fragments of the destriped image.
Professional programmers in this field have created a full set of software tools used by data recovery engineers to analyse, destripe, fix & recover data from raw images drives to virtually all operating systems. The Validity of information is checked once a recovery has been successfully performed, and file lists created.
A file recovery list is produced when your data is recovered. You can verify that your critical files are recoverable. The process usually takes 3-5 days though emergency data recovery services are also available.
Showing posts with label RAID Recovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RAID Recovery. Show all posts
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Clean Room Data Recovery - What's Its Significance?
What are clean rooms? Why is clean room data recovery important? We look at these issues first.
What Are Clean Rooms?
Clean rooms are rooms that have been designed to reduce the level of particulates in the air like dust aand airborne microbes. Clean room construction employs filters extensively. Outside air is filtered to prevent dust entering the room. Filters and processes will be in place inside the room to remove internally generated contaminants during production and working areas are often further filtered locally such as laminar flow bench.
Staff would usually have to enter clean rooms through airlocks and wear protective gear while working inside the rooms.
There are different "classes" of clean rooms, with each class limiting permissible different numbers of particles per cubic meter, as well as the maximum sizes particles. Thus a Class 1 clean room is one where the number of particles should not exceed 1000 particles per cubic meter.
Clean rooms are used extensively in the pharmaceutical, semiconductor manufacturing and biotech industries. Data recovery centres typically use a Class 100 clean room that has an allowance of 100,000 particles per cubic meter (compared to 35 million particles per cubic meter in a normal room).
Why Use Clean Rooms for Data Recovery?
Clean rooms are used for data recovery to prevent dust, electro static discharges and such disturbances. These kinds of precautions become necessary because even microscopic dust particles can damage the image on the drive platters, and make data recovery difficult.
With each generation of disks, data is packed more and more densely on the disk platters. It is thus increasingly important that data recovery be attempted in exceptionally clean rooms.
Drive manufacturers usually specify that their product guarantee will become void if the drive is opened by anybody other than themselves, or their authorized agents. And typically, one of the conditions they impose on authorized agents is that the disks be opened in clean rooms meeting specified standards.
Thus clean rooms are necessary for data recovery on both performance and product warranty considerations.
Clean Room Data Recovery
Disk drives are opened only in clean rooms and kept there until the recovery is complete and the drive is closed. All devices are also protected against electro-static discharge, physical shocks, temperature fluctuations and electrical disturbances.
Staff wear special clothing while working in the rooms and particle density is constantly monitored using particle counters. A typical objective of clean room data recovery centers is to maintain Class 10 conditions during production.
Conclusion
Data storage media are getting packed with data more and more densely with each new generation of drives. It is thus extremely important to attempt data recovery in exceptionally dust free rooms.
These days, clean room data recovery uses Class 100 clean rooms where the number of particles is reduced by some 350 times compared to normally prevailing particle density.
Clean room data recovery centers actually aim to achieve even higher levels of dust free conditions during production operations. Even minute specks of dust on the drive platters can damage the image on the media, and make data recovery even more difficult, if not impossible.
What Are Clean Rooms?
Clean rooms are rooms that have been designed to reduce the level of particulates in the air like dust aand airborne microbes. Clean room construction employs filters extensively. Outside air is filtered to prevent dust entering the room. Filters and processes will be in place inside the room to remove internally generated contaminants during production and working areas are often further filtered locally such as laminar flow bench.
Staff would usually have to enter clean rooms through airlocks and wear protective gear while working inside the rooms.
There are different "classes" of clean rooms, with each class limiting permissible different numbers of particles per cubic meter, as well as the maximum sizes particles. Thus a Class 1 clean room is one where the number of particles should not exceed 1000 particles per cubic meter.
Clean rooms are used extensively in the pharmaceutical, semiconductor manufacturing and biotech industries. Data recovery centres typically use a Class 100 clean room that has an allowance of 100,000 particles per cubic meter (compared to 35 million particles per cubic meter in a normal room).
Why Use Clean Rooms for Data Recovery?
Clean rooms are used for data recovery to prevent dust, electro static discharges and such disturbances. These kinds of precautions become necessary because even microscopic dust particles can damage the image on the drive platters, and make data recovery difficult.
With each generation of disks, data is packed more and more densely on the disk platters. It is thus increasingly important that data recovery be attempted in exceptionally clean rooms.
Drive manufacturers usually specify that their product guarantee will become void if the drive is opened by anybody other than themselves, or their authorized agents. And typically, one of the conditions they impose on authorized agents is that the disks be opened in clean rooms meeting specified standards.
Thus clean rooms are necessary for data recovery on both performance and product warranty considerations.
Clean Room Data Recovery
Disk drives are opened only in clean rooms and kept there until the recovery is complete and the drive is closed. All devices are also protected against electro-static discharge, physical shocks, temperature fluctuations and electrical disturbances.
Staff wear special clothing while working in the rooms and particle density is constantly monitored using particle counters. A typical objective of clean room data recovery centers is to maintain Class 10 conditions during production.
Conclusion
Data storage media are getting packed with data more and more densely with each new generation of drives. It is thus extremely important to attempt data recovery in exceptionally dust free rooms.
These days, clean room data recovery uses Class 100 clean rooms where the number of particles is reduced by some 350 times compared to normally prevailing particle density.
Clean room data recovery centers actually aim to achieve even higher levels of dust free conditions during production operations. Even minute specks of dust on the drive platters can damage the image on the media, and make data recovery even more difficult, if not impossible.
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