RAID Controller Failure

[Woofmeister]

I'm a pretty savy computer user and have built several computers utilizing a RAID O configuration. I am not however, in charge of my company's computer system. Some time ago, one of my company's servers had a RAID controller failure due to a power loss (no battery module installed on the RAID controller). I believe we were running in RAID 5. So far as I know, there was no damage to any hard drive in the RAID.

The support company with which we had (emphasize had) a contract claimed that there was no way to rebuild the arrays and that all the data was lost.

Were they correct? Why couldn't the array be rebuilt and all the data accessed by installing an identical controller card and drivers?

Assuming that wouldn't have worked, was there some way to regain the data?

 

[VirtualLarry]

I would think that installing an identical card and drivers, should allow accessing the array again. Generally, the metadata is on the drive.

If the raid array was using a mobo RAID controller, then check out the RAID2RAID tool, google it.

 

[Elixer]

Originally posted by: Woofmeister
I'm a pretty savy computer user and have built several computers utilizing a RAID O configuration. I am not however, in charge of my company's computer system. Some time ago, one of my company's servers had a RAID controller failure due to a power loss (no battery module installed on the RAID controller). I believe we were running in RAID 5. So far as I know, there was no damage to any hard drive in the RAID.

The support company with which we had (emphasize had) a contract claimed that there was no way to rebuild the arrays and that all the data was lost.

Were they correct? Why couldn't the array be rebuilt and all the data accessed by installing an identical controller card and drivers?

Assuming that wouldn't have worked, was there some way to regain the data?

If it was RAID 5, then just hooking it up to the same controller should fix the problem, unless of course, it was in the middle of a write. Then there is most likely some corruption, but most of the data should be OK.