RAID rebuild. 3 drives showing as 2 different degraded array

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I got a computer in yesterday from a local repair shop that said one drive in a Win server 2003 3 250 GB drive RAID 5 array failed. They tried to replace the drive and rebuild the RAID but when they went to the (built into the motherboard) RAID utility, it said there were 2 different RAID arrays, both 500 GB.

They gave the computer to us. We imaged all 3 drives perfectly in DDI. Not a single sector required so much as a second pass. All 3 drives were also imaged to files using R-studio. I then tried the imaged drives in the array. Same result.

Next, in R-studio I tried rebuilding the array. With the 64 K stripe size I got from the client's RAID utility, I tried a couple settings in R-studio and can see some file structure, but with a lot of errors. I next opened winhex and tried to look for the MFT. It wasn't found when I searched for FILE0 and I don't know what I'm looking for in the MBR to find it. I did notice that in the last 2 sectors of each drive, it seems to confirm that they are a part of a RAID 5 at least. Also, 2 of the drives seem identical in the first several sectors, but the 3rd drive looks more like it is 00 00 rather than parity info.

I've attached the first 100 sectors and the last 2 sectors of each drive. It's raw binary data, but I appended '.txt' in order to upload it as this forum does not accept files without extensions.

If anyone could take a look at the info or pass along what I should be looking for, I'd be most appreciative. Thanks!

Steve

Attachments

end of bottom.txt

last 2 sectors of bottom

(1 KiB) Downloaded 461 times

end of middle.txt

last 2 sectors of middle

(1 KiB) Downloaded 446 times

end of top.txt

last 2 sectors of top

(1 KiB) Downloaded 465 times

Bottom first 100.txt

first 100 sectors of the bottom drive

(50 KiB) Downloaded 466 times

middle first 100.txt

first 100 sectors of the middle drive

(50 KiB) Downloaded 470 times

top first 100.txt

(50 KiB) Downloaded 487 times

[DR-Kiev]

For the first look
you have such order: 1 -middle - 2 top - 3 bottom
Block size: 128 or 256 ?
But those parametres in meta sectors could be deceptive if someone has tried already to rebiuld it.
BTW. Drive "middle" looks like not native (try to miss it) or array was one time rebiult before.

Attachments

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DR-Kiev,

Incredibly helpful. Once I unchecked the middle drive, everything fell into place. Thank you!

Steve