Welcome to Cardiff Data Recovery, Wales’s No.1 data recovery company for failed RAID systems. With over 25 years of experience, we specialise in professional RAID 5 data recovery for IBM servers and other enterprise-class systems.
If your RAID 5 array has failed after a power outage, don’t panic — our expert engineers can recover your mission-critical data, including clinical records, x-rays, and patient management databases, even if the server will no longer boot or the RAID volume appears offline.
🏥 IBM RAID 5 Server Case: Dental Surgery System
In this case, an IBM server hosting a RAID 5 array with six disks failed to reboot after a sudden power outage. The system was used by a dental practice to store sensitive patient files, including dental x-rays and case notes. After the event, the RAID controller showed an error state and the operating system failed to load the array.
🛠️ Common Causes of RAID 5 Failure After Power Loss
- Corrupted RAID metadata on one or more disks
- RAID controller cache not written to disk before shutdown
- Parity inconsistency across striped data
- Disk desynchronisation or incorrect logical order
- One or more drives dropped out of the array temporarily
- Operating system boot volume damage
These types of failures can lead to critical data loss if the wrong rebuild or recovery steps are attempted. That’s why professional recovery is essential.
🔧 Our RAID 5 File Recovery Process – Step by Step
Step 1: Disk Imaging and Integrity Check
Each of the 6 drives is removed and cloned using read-only forensic imaging tools. We never operate on the original drives to avoid risk of further data loss.
Step 2: RAID Metadata Analysis
We analyse the RAID metadata, stripe size, disk order, and parity rotation pattern. Even if the metadata is damaged, our engineers can reconstruct it using sector-level analysis.
Step 3: RAID Emulation
A virtual RAID 5 array is rebuilt in a controlled environment using the correct sequence and parity structure. We validate the logical volume to ensure alignment and consistency across all disks.
Step 4: File System Repair
Once the virtual array is successfully mounted, we repair any file system issues caused by the incomplete write operation during the power loss (e.g., NTFS corruption, orphaned file entries).
Step 5: Data Extraction and Verification
Files — such as patient data, DICOM imaging, spreadsheets, and databases — are extracted and verified. Folder structures and timestamps are preserved where possible.
💻 Supported IBM Server Platforms
We support RAID recovery from:
- IBM System x Series
- IBM eServer xSeries
- IBM x3650, x3550, x3400
- IBM BladeCentre & IBM Storage Systems
- IBM ServeRAID controllers (RAID 5, RAID 10, RAID 6)
RAID file systems supported:
- NTFS, FAT32, EXT3/EXT4, ReFS, XFS, VMFS
Interfaces supported:
- SAS, SATA, SCSI, NVMe, PATA (IDE)
✅ Why Choose Cardiff Data Recovery?
- Over 25 years’ experience in RAID 5 file recovery
- Successful RAID rebuilds after metadata corruption, rebuild failures, and parity errors
- Full GDPR-compliant handling of confidential patient data
- Optional 48-hour critical service for urgent clinical or business needs
- Free initial diagnostics and transparent communication throughout
We have recovered data for healthcare clients, legal offices, government departments, and small businesses throughout Wales and the UK.
📞 Contact Cardiff Data Recovery Today
Has your IBM server RAID 5 array failed after a power cut? If your RAID won’t boot, shows errors, or your files appear to be missing — stop all rebuild attempts and seek expert help.
Contact Cardiff Data Recovery today for a free diagnostic. We are your trusted partner for RAID 5 file recovery, helping recover your data quickly, securely, and professionally.