Question Distributed disk split and cant be recombined

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
rogerdv

rogerdv

Member
Dec 2, 2010
150
4
81
I have a PC with 4disks combined in tw distrubuted volumes, 2 disks each. Yesterday I tried to remove one of those pairs, but I ended up with a mess where I cant make the second distributed disk to work again. It is in external state, and when I try to import it back it displays the two disks in separate groups and says data is incomplete. Any way to fix this without loosing my information?
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
rogerdv

rogerdv

Member
Dec 2, 2010
150
4
81
Too late. I had to take an urgent decision and converted the disks back to basic with EaseUS Partition Master. Now Im trying to recover the data back, but have no hopes to do so.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

fzabkar

Member
Jun 14, 2013
166
46
101
DMDE can still help, if that's all you did. Depending on the problem, it may only require a couple of clicks. In any case, a Partitions window should take less than a minute, and it should tell us exactly how the drives are organised.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
mxnerd

mxnerd

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2007
6,799
1,103
126
RAID 0 is a no-no in all environment. You are asking trouble yourself.

try either one of the following RAID reconstructor.

RAID Recovery Software - the only FREE tool

Need to recover a failed RAID? Do not rush to send it to a lab, try our read-only free RAID recovery software which recovers most common RAID types.
www.freeraidrecovery.com www.freeraidrecovery.com

of course you need another larger disk to save your situation.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
rogerdv

rogerdv

Member
Dec 2, 2010
150
4
81
Ok, DMDE detects an NTFS partition in one of the disks (havent checked the second). It started a full scan, but the result seems very similar to easeUs Data recovery: lot of files in RAW, organized by types.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

fzabkar

Member
Jun 14, 2013
166
46
101
With DMDE you can create a virtual drive consists of the relevant sections of each of the two physical drives. You just need to find the start and end LBAs of each section and then stitch them together. I have been through this procedure with a user at Tom's Hardware, so I know that it works.

DMDE can mount this virtual volume and you can then recover your files to another drive. If you need help with this, then upload screenshots of the Partitions windows.

BTW, a full scan is probably not necessary, and most likely a waste of time.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
rogerdv

rogerdv

Member
Dec 2, 2010
150
4
81
fzabkar said:
With DMDE you can create a virtual drive consists of the relevant sections of each of the two physical drives. You just need to find the start and end LBAs of each section and then stitch them together. I have been through this procedure with a user at Tom's Hardware, so I know that it works.

DMDE can mount this virtual volume and you can then recover your files to another drive. If you need help with this, then upload screenshots of the Partitions windows.

BTW, a full scan is probably not necessary, and most likely a waste of time.
Click to expand...

Remember I converted the disks back to basic. Now I cant remember if the 5 TB disk was the first or the second (anyway, the order was lost before I converted it back)
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

fzabkar

Member
Jun 14, 2013
166
46
101
The screenshot is showing a 9TB NTFS volume which consists of a 4TB HDD as the first drive and a 5TB HDD as the second. The starting sector (- 7813507...) is on the first drive.

We now need to see the 4TB drive.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

fzabkar

Member
Jun 14, 2013
166
46
101
DMDE can reconstruct a logical volume from two or more spanned drives.

To construct a spanned volume, we go to ...

  • Drive -> Construct RAID
    select JBOD/Spanned from dropdown list
    Menu -> Add Disk -> OK
    r-click disk and select Partition / Offset / Segment
    select appropriate values for First, Last and Number of Sectors

You will be adding two disks, 4TB then 5TB.

The first section of the spanned volume is on the 4TB drive. We know that first sector is 264192 but we don't know the last sector of this section.

The second section of the spanned volume is on the 5TB drive. We know that the last sector is 9767540735 but we don't know the first sector of this section.

We know that the size of the 9TB NTFS CELULARES volume is (ultimo sector - primer sector) + 1. Unfortunately the ultimo sector is not completely visible in the screenshot.

We now need to find the end sector of the first section, and the start sector of the second section. Then we can stitch the two sections together. This is the hard part.

I would start with the 5TB drive and go to sector 34. View it in hexadecimal. Then Page-Down until you find stuff that looks like data. There should be a point where the data changes abruptly. This will most probably be the first sector of the second spanned section. Once you have determined the sector number, you can then fill in the missing numbers for the start and end sectors. DMDE will then present you with a virtual 9TB NTFS volume.

To test whether you have stitched the two sections at the correct boundary, double-click the 9TB virtual volume and expand the Root. Select a file which you expect is on the 5TB drive and recover it to another drive. A JPEG or ZIP would be a good choice for testing.

Here is a similar thread:
https://forums.tomshardware.com/thr...ddenly-missing-dynamic-disks-invalid.3512772/
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
rogerdv

rogerdv

Member
Dec 2, 2010
150
4
81
Ok, I found this:
begin sector.jpg
So, I guess the begin sector for the 5TB disk is 264192
Also, have question, what the hell is that stuff filling from sector 34 to 264192? Partition table?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

fzabkar

Member
Jun 14, 2013
166
46
101
Nice work. Sectors 34 to 264191 are reserved for the Microsoft Reserved partition.

Can you tell us the number of the "ultimo sector" for the CELULARES volume on the 4TB screenshot (the last 3 digits are missing)?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
rogerdv

rogerdv

Member
Dec 2, 2010
150
4
81
fzabkar said:
Nice work. Sectors 34 to 264191 are reserved for the Microsoft Reserved partition.

Can you tell us the number of the "ultimo sector" for the CELULARES volume on the 4TB screenshot (the last 3 digits are missing)?
Click to expand...
Last sector is 17581311999, first sector is 264192. Guess now I have all the values and can proceed with recovery. Will let you know.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
F

fzabkar

Member
Jun 14, 2013
166
46
101
These are my calculations:

9TB
first sector = 264192
last sector = 17581311999
size = 17581311999 - 264192 + 1 = 17581047808

4TB
first sector = 264192
last sector = 7813771264 + 264192 - 1 = 7814035455
size = 17581047808 - 9767276544 = 7813771264

5TB
first sector = 264192
last sector = 9767540735
size = 9767540735 - 264192 + 1 = 9767276544

I would examine sector 7814035455 on the 4TB drive to confirm that this looks like the boundary. Compare the data against sector 264192 on the 5TB drive. They should be similar.


Edit:

ReclaiMe is a freeware tool that can determine the parameters of a spanned volume, but I would think that the metadata would need to be intact. It wouldn't hurt to give it a try.

http://www.freeraidrecovery.com/

DMDE can also automatically detect the parameters of a RAID, but I don't know if it can also do this for a spanned/dynamic/JBOD volume.
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom