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wikiwat01
Contributor
Contributor
‎08-23-2022 06:20 PM

moving raid 6 array from one server and adding it onto another to recover vmfs files

Hello,

I am kind of new to all of this but I was assigned a task to remove raid 6 array from one of our vm hosting servers (Vmware ESXi 5.5.0) which has been affected by a power outtage and now it is not able to detect any of the files in disk array and mounting them onto another one of our vm hosting servers to see if we can access the vmfs files from there and retrieve them.

We have tried multiple attempts at recovering these files but came to a dead end. Only option now is to send disks to a data recovery center but want to try this and see.

Current findings:

  1. RAID array 100% healthy
  2. Vmfs file system reported by various utilities
  3. Contents of that vmfs volume not shown as expected
  4. Scan for mountable local vmfs volume finds none.
  5. Mounting the volume manually shows only a “System Volume Information” folder dated from some time in 2014.
  6. Fsck tools do not find any volume to fix.

Is this posssible? Hope I explained it correctly enough.

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1 Reply
a_p_
Leadership
Leadership
‎08-23-2022 07:40 PM

Whether moving the RAID disks to another server will work depends on the RAID controller, i.e. if it will correctly pick-up the RAID information to form the RAID. So far I've only done this on HPE's SmartArray controllers.
However, if the data on the RAID disks is important, you should avoid any further risk which may even make things worse.

The only user here on VMTN, who may be able to help is @continuum. He's a data recovery expert, and helped many people over the last 10+ years. If you want, contact him via Skype "sanbarrow".

André

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