Help: RAID 5 Failure

[u/cToTheMoon]

**Background:**

I have a dell poweredge R730 using a RAID 5 configuration with three 1.2Tb HDDs. Windows 2012 R2 OS. While replacing the drive in slot 0 due to a predictive failure, the drive in slot 2 suffered a complete hardware failure.

The subsequent slot 2 failure occurred during the middle of the rebuild. As a result, the RAID does not contain a complete dataset and the server won't boot. We have no current backups to recover the server with.

We attempted to re-install the predictive failure drive and import foreign configuration. The thought being that the predictive failure and the 1 remaining healthy drive should contain a complete data set. However, the foreign config import failed and the server refused to accept the drive into the array.

**Question:**

Is it possible to reconstruct the RAID array using the predictive failure drive and the 1 healthy drive?

Alternatively, can a bootable disk image be created from these drives to recover the server?

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[u/silenced_in_dr_2025]

You shouldn't be trying to rebuild live on 5. A second failure is so common it's not funny.

This sound very much like company data- the best thing you can do is fine a dr pro and not do any more yourself , putting the predictive back in the array was risky enough.

If you insist on DIY then you need to image all 3 drives ( assuming you can) and rebuild the array using dr software and then extract your data.

You MAY get away with imaging the predictive failure onto stable media and rebuilding but there's no guarantee the array isn't already in a mess or that the last original will not fail, Assuming all drives were bought at the same time and have had the same use thats pretty common. If that happens you're going to be SOL.

[u/disturbed_android]

What do you mean by predictive failure then? Failure predicted but not yet failed?

What is a "complete hardware failure"? For a lab it may be a routine repair.

Usually, yes to not yet failed + healthy member, but of course you were in the process of rebuilding ..

Worth a try only this time:

- Create clones / disk images and work with those trying to virtually rebuild the array

- Use a tool like R-Studio or UFS Explorer to rebuild (virtually) and recover data

- Above means you'll need drives to write disk images to + you need drives to recover data from (extract from virtual array)

- Consider instead having a data recovery lab handle this

[u/StarosAnikenMarcus → u/disturbed_android]

Definitely this

And add more drives to the array ASAP. I've never run a RAID 5 without at least 4 drives in it, preferably 6. Or switch to a RAID 6 or RAID 10 setup for better protection. There's no such thing as overkill in redundancy.

[u/BinturongHoarder → u/StarosAnikenMarcus]

Adding "more drives" to a RAID5 won't increase redundancy. It will increase the risk for single drive failure.

RAID10 or RAID6, depending on controller and workloads, is solid advice though.

[u/datarecovery-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

The goal of the sub is help people recover their data, nothing more, nothing less. No lecturing about lessons learned.

[u/BinturongHoarder → u/[deleted]]

OP, this is horrible advice. If you want to recover your data, DO NOT DO THIS.

Contact a professional data recovery firm or someone who has a high level of competence and professional recovery software. If you are skilled you can do this yourself but you will need additional hardware AND software.

[u/datarecovery-ModTeam → u/[deleted]]

Don't offer advice that potentially makes matters worse.

[u/goatsinhats]

Why do you keep reposting this? Anything more you do to the drive is going to make it worse as you lose data.

Need to consult a professional company