RAID 5 failed !!

[Mysha]

I am running with the Dell power vault 725N utilizing a 4 HDD RAID 5 setup. Server has been died and BIOS error message displayed that two hard drives got failed. I am unable to boot with the windows. Data seems very crucial, what are the options for data recovery ?

I actually consider that I am able to recover the data, I though that there are two HDD actually got failed at the same time without occurring any type of warnings. I considered that its the raid controller. Are there any companies/programs that would help in this considering that it is a hard disk failure and not a controller related problems ?

[Samarthaa]

I have had two drives moved up failed, but had hot spares which took over. On the measurement of the logs, the drives got failed once on different weekend days, but the array continuously on processing.

I have probably found that drives from the similar production batch and commonly got failed at nearly the same time. If you have some spaces in your array, it is wise to have one or two spare drives spinning in situation of different failures.

[Marthaz]

What mostly happened was that you had only single incapable drive with your system. The drive was limpiing along and not going to get kicked out of the array (dark drive). It started occurring the issues which make the affects on the performance of the different drives within the array. The RAID controller mistakenly hits to a fine drive out of the array, skipping the worst one in the array. The damaged one eventually got failed solid and it also gets kicked out of the array.

[SUpER CoP]

If you are not running with the hot spares then you have a dual DDM failure. If you available with the appropriate hot spares, the second drive got failed before sparing had a opportunity to finish it up. In either situation, it is a good chance that the another failed drive is the real culprit. Your only have an opportunity of getting access to your data is to go with the recovery procedure for second failed drive. Take this out and bang it on the table . In case, if that is not working for you then you need to go for having the same in your freezer .

[Omari]

You should check out if the data stored onto the RAID 5 is backed up onto the secondary storage device such as the tape backup and all. If in case ,its is backed up properly as device specified , rebuild the RAID and then go for the restore procedure of the data that is already backed up onto the Tape .For the restore procedure of latest data,you can refer the backup catalogs. It always moved fine to have a hot spare implemented with the RAID.