I have a 4 drive raid 5 array that failed. All my family pics were there...

I have run some data recovery software and the only one that has been successful has been arax Disk Doctor. Now it has found the files with an advanced scan but....


When I open the recovered jpgs they look like they are messed up jigsaw puzzles... Of course other jpg files seem to have come out just fine...


Now the big issue I have found is that the messed up JPG files when viewed with windows explorer ... Initially it shows the correct picture as a thumbnail... Then it goes thru and does a redo on the thumbnails and it turns into the messed up picture.

attached is a screeenshot of what windows explorer looks like initially (top portion) and the same portion of the screen after it is done loading thumbnails (bottom portion)

Is there any way to fix these jpg files?

I have called some profesional data recovery places and they want $4500 to $10k to recover my files... I can't fork over that kind of money.

Welcome to SAF, rfolkes!

Unfortunately, RAID arrays have one disadvantage. When they are run in any of the 'striping' modes, the files are split between the drives, so there is no full image available on any one drive, unless it was very small and fit into one block on one drive.

RAID 5 stripes both data and parity information across three or more drives. This array can usually tolerate the loss of one drive.

Beyond the links provided, I'm not a RAID 'guru', but perhaps the links will help. It appears to me that perhaps the parity is lost between the drives and that is what is causing the jigsawing. With things like family pictures and other critical files, it's always wise to have an off-system backup.

Jim is correct.... the easiest solution that I have for you is if only one drive failed..... then what you will need to do is replace that one failed drive and run the rebuild util thats built into the array. If you were using software raid.... your kinda screwed.

Whitehat