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EDR / Specialist / RAID 0 data recovery

Specialist · RAID 0 striped pairs

RAID 0 data recovery, Exeter. It spreads every file across both drives and never kept a copy of anything.

When you use striping on your files to divide them into segments (chunks) that get distributed among multiple drives in a rotating pattern, you can reach the performance that two-bay external devices and gaming systems are chasing. The cost for this performance comes from zero data redundancy. If one drive goes down, part of every file greater than a single chunk will be missing from the reconstructed set. To recover an Exeter striped set we have to image both disks, prove the original stripe order and block size, then rebuild the striped set as a virtual disk. In cases where there's a problem so bad a disk truly can't be read, we're going to tell you straight out which of the data will come back partial.

Only pay if we recover your data, on most jobs Free diagnosis and a written quote Get a quote first, then post from anywhere in Devon

Talk it over with an engineer
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What the RAID 0 symptoms are telling you.

Not there? Head for the triage →
What's wrongWhat it usually meansStep one
External two-bay drive no longer mountsAlternate chunks on each drive: neither can be read independentlyPower off; get a quote first, then send both drives together, labelled by bay
One member drive dead, or entirely unseen after detection failureAll files wider than a single chunk crossed that missing member driveDo not format anything; the lab will decide
The set vanished following a motherboard or controller changeYour data hasn't moved; this new board just doesn't know how to find the layoutImages allow the geometry to be recovered
Deleted or recreated array within the RAID toolNew metadata written over the original, but most of the striped data beneath survivesStop before something is initialised
A NAS striped volume is showing RAW after an eventThe file system that spans across the striping has been damaged; however the drives often are notImage both, then repair the copies
Recovery software ran on each separate diskIndividual single-disk recovery programs cannot read the interleaving between the disks, and therefore produce nonsensical resultsTake note of which program you used for recovery. Get a quote first, then send both disks, labelled by bay.
Posting it to us: get a quote first, by phone or with the form, then please use a traceable (tracked) and insured postal delivery method to send your device to our intake lab in Bristol; the return is paid for by us. Alternatively you can drop your item off there yourself, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. An engineer will talk you through how to pack your unit when you call to obtain the quote. More information about sending your items can be found on the contact page.

RAID 0: quick by design, brittle by the same design.

What striping actually isThe files are divided into blocks of a specific size (usually 64KB or 128KB) and then written to the members one after another. Files can be read from both members simultaneously; this is the point. Nothing exists twice; this is the risk involved.
Three numbers decide itThe member order, block size and start position: reconstruction depends upon the values established for these three, and a single error in any of these will not allow reconstruction to occur. Each value is determined using information available within the data itself, and the result is tested before being trusted as such.
When one member is a write-offThere is no parity available to reconstruct from. What is left is whatever an imager may still be able to extract from the failing disk, and any small files which landed intact on the surviving disk. Larger files will come back "holed" from the extraction process, and you will receive a straight list of which files are intact and which are incomplete prior to making a decision.
Gaming rigs and striped SSDsPairs of striped disks commonly arrive from gaming systems that have had their loading time reduced with an Intel RST or AMD RAID motherboard-based system. There are two ways that SSDs can increase your risk of losing data: a single failed disk requires controller-level intervention, and, although you can't see what's going on, TRIM will clear all deleted space on your SSD, so once you notice performance troubles, stop using that set immediately.

The recovery, one stage at a time.

01

Booked in, assessed for nothing Free

Your device will be logged under its own case number on the day it comes into our lab. The engineer who works on your device identifies the problem with it, clearly states what we think has a good chance of coming back and provides you with one fixed quote. There are no charges for this assessment; there is no obligation for you to do anything; and paid work does not begin until you authorise us to start.

The look is freeA single quote, in writingNo obligation
02

Image both members, weakest first

All data on both drives is copied in full to our storage server. The failing drive continues to run, nursed along in slow passes, as we copy it on a hardware imaging device. We then document and diagnose the bad areas in each pass. All further actions occur with the copied sets.

Both members cloned in fullFailing drive handled gently
03

Prove the stripe order and size

Which disk leads, how big the chunks will be and the position of the first stripe: all three must be proven, and they can be proven by using the file system structures that contain the data, such as boot records, MFT entries and directory runs. The use of a controller or an enclosure is never necessary.

Order & size provedOffset established, not guessed
04

Rebuild virtually, then check it opens

Software will take both images and put them together again as one single volume, and repair the file system on top. Then the end result is judged as to whether your files open like they should, versus a folder tree that looks good but does not open correctly: this is the only true measure.

Stripe rebuilt virtuallyFiles verified to open
05

Watched back, verified, returned

You have access to a complete list of every item recovered from your device, which you approve prior to any fees being applied. The files will be returned via new media (brand new) with the return postage paid by us, and the case remains open for as long as it takes to confirm that all the files open properly on your own machine.

You approve the file listReturned on new mediaWe pay return postage

Opening checks at the bench

  • Twice the odds, no cushion: a striped pair has twice the likelihood of failing as a single disk, and when one fails the entire array is lost. RAID 0 had no other promise than speed and delivered as such.
  • The map can be re-drawn: the striping layout and the chunk size will never die with the controller. Both parameters have enough structural information left within NTFS and exFAT on each member to be proven using nothing but the data itself.
  • Plenty of owners never picked RAID 0: many two-disk external enclosures are sold striped to enhance read/write speeds (LaCie 2big and WD My Book Duo among them). The learning experience usually comes quickly after losing one of the disks in the stripe.
  • Striped SSDs change the job: desktop boards will happily allow you to stripe two SSDs together; however, if one of them dies, you'll be dealing with controller-level lab work, and TRIM will make it extremely difficult to find deleted files on a striped SSD pair.

The honest limits, before you spend anything: if both of the RAID members are readable, then typically a RAID 0 recovery will be complete: geometry proven, set rebuilt, files verified open. If either of your RAID members fails to read data, then you have no possibility of using parity to recover from the failure; as such, all files greater than your chunk size will show missing sections in them, however files less than your chunk size that sit fully intact on the surviving RAID member will often remain intact. The free diagnosis tells you which side of that line yours falls on.

Fresh from the casebook.

EX · EDR-2026-2846VERIFIED ✓

A two-bay editing array quit mid-project — with one member failing

A film editor's LaCie 2big (a two-bay) had been set up striped for speed from the factory, however midway through a project one of the drives began to go bad, leaving it unable to mount. With two slow days spent using a hardware imager, we successfully made a nearly complete copy of the data on the "weak" drive. The rebuild process utilised the original exFAT structures to prove out both the stripe order and chunk sizes, ultimately allowing the entire project to be recovered with only a few damaged clips.

Both members imaged3 days in the lab

Before it leaves your hands.

Do

  • Now cut the power to the enclosure or PC
  • Mark each hard drive with the bay it came out of
  • Get a quote first, before sending both together; both members are important, the dead one too
  • Tell us what your enclosure or motherboard type is, and what stripe you used, if you know

Steer clear

  • Use the setup program to rebuild or re-create an array for this set of drives
  • Say yes to initialising or formatting when Windows asks you to do so
  • Run recovery on each disk individually using the recovery software
  • Shuffle your hard drives around the bays to see if you can get them working

Straight answers from the bench.

One drive of the pair is dead — what will actually come back?

We are being honest here: with RAID 0 there is no second copy of the data; therefore, wherever we cannot read information from the failed disk member, there will be holes where the data should have been in the restored set. If a hardware imager is able to pull out almost all of the sectors from the failing (weak) drive, then the outcome can be nearly complete. However, if this disk does not read any data, then files small enough to fit inside one chunk on the good (survivor) disk will restore completely, but files larger than that will return as files with gaps. You hear that verdict at the free diagnosis, before you commit to anything.

Do you need both drives — even one that seems completely dead?

Both, all the time. Any files larger than a single "chunk" will span the entire set of drives, therefore one drive alone is just half a puzzle with no picture. Get a quote first, then send them (exactly) as they are: no formatting, no test scans, don't re-try inside the enclosure. If possible, label which bay each came from. Drives that may appear to have completely died to your PC can often still yield something when imaged on the bench, and it is this data that determines the rebuild quality.

Can't recovery software just work out the stripe order itself?

It's sometimes possible for an intelligent tool to detect the geometry on two healthy members, but the danger of guessing wrongly will be there. If you interleave your blocks in the wrong order, at the wrong size or with the wrong offset, this creates a volume which looks OK whilst all files larger than a block are rubbish; users then make it worse doing their best to correct their own mis-built copy. We prove the order, size of a block and the offset from file system metadata, and we work on images, whereby incorrect attempts cost nothing.

Our two SSDs were striped by the motherboard — does that change the job?

The striping remains the same, but the drives in question are not. This means that the problem with a "dead" SSD is at the controller level (the chips), rather than being due to weak or failing areas on the drive itself, and this creates a hurdle to clear before a rebuild can begin. In addition, the ability of TRIM to blank deleted space while you continue to use a live array means you may never be able to recover from an accidental deletion on one of these paired SSDs. As soon as you see your array act erratically, stop using it. Get a quote first, then send both disks together.

More like this in the casebook.

Recover a server → Database recovery → RAID arrays & servers → What we take in →

Whatever the fault, leave the power off.

Every time a failing hardware component is powered back up, there is additional lost data. First open a case with us: the inspection (look over) is always at no cost, whichever way it goes.

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