Hey!

just yesterday I was doing some BIOS work on my computer, and accidentally loaded a saved configuration from my BIOS that changed the SATA mode from RAID->AHCI.

I have a RAID10(0+1) composed of 4x3TB drives managed by the intel onboard controller, which promptly failed after the sata mode changed. two disks fell out of the raid, and are now in a non-member configuration. As I understand it, nothing has physically failed, just the software RAID has messed up the metadata.

I found a gentleman who experienced the exact same issue that I did, and has recovered all of his files without issue

link1: http://superuser.com/questions/814029/raid-10-failure-after-changing-bios-setting
link2: https://blog.jordanhopfner.com/2014/09/19/recover-a-failed-raid-array-with-disks-that-havent-actually-failed/

In the case that my self recovery fails, prior to doing so, can I take each drive of the raid and individually clone it to a 3TB drive, then attempt to restore the raid from the 4 duplicate drives I made? this theoretically would preserve the original drives so if I mess anything up, I would be able to take it to a professional no problem.

My question is, is it possible to clone the drives and then restore the RAID from the duplicate drives? If so, what steps should I take to clone the drives safely without any risk? Thanks!

This is a VERY good idea. Please, do so.
Assuming your drives are healthy (I'm not so sure about that), you must clone them sector-by-sector and use these clones to recover the data. There are many utilities that can help you with clones, the easiest one is HDD Raw Copy Tool or you can use ddrescue or HDDSuperTool under Linux etc.
Make sure you do a FULL clone of the drives.
Again, if your drives (s) are degraded this could end up in a disaster and as always, if data is important you"re strongly advised to consult a decent pro.
DON'T attempt recovery without cloning drives first.
Good luck!

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AISI, the solution need not be as time consuming, or as expensive, as was suggested.

Since the RAID contains 2 redundant drives, it could be reassembled as a RAID 0 using an appropriate pair. This could be achieved using a software RAID such as mdadm (Linux). This RAID 0 could then cloned with HDDSuperClone or ddrescue. Alternatively, you might attempt to mount the RAID 0 and then simply copy your files to another drive, say a single 6TB.

Still another method could be to assemble the RAID 0 using DMDE and then recover the files to another drive.

http://dmde.com/

Yet another method is ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery:
http://www.freeraidrecovery.com/

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A backup a day keeps DR away.

And I suppose you will recover the data for free, in case something goes wrong or the wrong set of drives is being selected, or OP uses DMDE the wrong way, or the drives collapse during the RAID reconstruction.

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All of these tools will treat the OP's data as read-only. The OP states that the only damage is to the RAID metadata, so s/he already has a sector-by-sector clone.

In any case, a RAID "reconstruction" would be relatively quick, probably a matter of minutes, if not seconds. Cloning the reassembled RAID would be where one could encounter problems, but this risk would be no greater than when cloning the individual drives.

I don't see the problem.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

What do you mean exactly by "mounting the RAID 0"? From what I understand, this would require me to know which drives exactly are paired, beyond that I don't know how to verify which ones are a pair and then assemble that RAID 0 together.

Before I try messing around on my own though, I'll be cloning the drives so if anything happens I always have the option of finding a professional, since it seems like there isn't really any risk involved to cloning the drives and working on the duplicates, right?

I have to STRONGLY DISAGREE with each and every statement of this post.

The OP stated that s/he THINKS the problem is with the metadata and I do not see anywhere saying that s/he has already cloned the drives. English is not my native language, but from what I understand, OP's question was if it is a good idea TO MAKE CLONES. Maybe I'm wrong.

Also, reconstructing a RAID array is not always easy, and definitely NOT matter of seconds (except LVM's etc).

Cloning the members of a RAID array is ALWAYS a good idea, IMHO.
As always, OP's data = OP's choice.

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This is wise.

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