Cardiff Data Recovery – Wales’s No.1 dell poweredge recovery specialist – was recently approached by a major dental organisation after their DELL PowerEdge 4200 server suffered a catastrophic RAID 10 rebuild failure. The rebuild was triggered following a drive replacement, but ongoing bad sectors across multiple disks prevented the RAID from fully restoring, placing mission-critical patient data at serious risk.
This case study outlines our step-by-step professional RAID recovery approach, demonstrating how our expert engineers successfully recovered the complete RAID volume and restored all client data.
🛠️ Issue Summary
- System: DELL PowerEdge 4200 Server
- RAID Level: RAID 10 (Striped Mirrors)
- Disk Type: SAS HDDs (8 drives – 4 mirrors striped into RAID 0)
- Failure: Rebuild failure due to bad sectors on surviving drives
- Impact: Patient records, appointment logs, and financial data inaccessible
- Urgency: Business-critical downtime for a nationwide dental practice chain
🧩 Our Step-by-Step RAID Recovery Process
1. Secure Intake and Imaging of All Drives
Upon receiving the array, each drive was:
- Labelled and catalogued
- Write-blocked to preserve original data
- Individually imaged using forensic data acquisition tools (DeepSpar / PC-3000)
- Drives with bad sectors were cloned using read retry, adaptive timing, and head shift techniques to maximise data retrieval
- SMART attributes analysed to detect underlying instability in heads or platters
2. Analysis of RAID Parameters
Even though the controller had failed to rebuild, our engineers reconstructed the array manually by determining:
- Stripe size
- Drive order
- Mirror pairs and sequence
- Block alignment and rotation pattern
We extracted this information from metadata remnants and volume headers using forensic tools and manual analysis of known file system markers.
3. Handling Bad Sectors During Reconstruction
Drives with bad sectors required selective reconstruction:
- Mirror pairs were compared – data blocks missing on one drive were cross-verified and supplemented from the healthy mirror
- Byte-level validation was used for overlapping sectors
- Damaged blocks were patched using redundant stripe data, logical parity inference, or zero-filling only when absolutely necessary and after consultation with the client
4. Virtual RAID Emulation
Using a professional RAID reconstruction platform (R-Studio Technician Edition), we:
- Built a virtual RAID 10 environment using the good images
- Simulated the original controller logic to mount the file system
- Validated directory structures, partition integrity, and file system consistency (NTFS)
This step confirmed successful RAID alignment and allowed us to preview the full volume before extraction.
5. Data Verification & Extraction
- All files were extracted to a separate recovery environment
- Sensitive folders (medical records, x-ray images, patient forms) were prioritised
- File integrity verified via hash-matching where possible
- Corrupted or partially damaged files were reconstructed using header recovery and logical structure rebuilds (especially Excel and SQL database files)
💽 Supported Systems & RAID Levels
This recovery method applies to a wide range of RAID environments and systems including:
- DELL PowerEdge (All Generations)
- RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50, and 60
- SAS / SATA / SSD drives
- PERC Controllers (H700, H710, H730, H740, H750)
- Dell EqualLogic, MD-series and rack servers
- VM-hosted RAID volumes (VMFS, NTFS, EXT4)
✅ Why Choose Cardiff Data Recovery?
- 25 Years’ Experience in RAID and server data recovery
- Proven Success Recovering Failed DELL PowerEdge Arrays
- Support for Rebuild Failures, Controller Faults, and Firmware Errors
- Data Recovery for Healthcare, Legal, and Financial Sectors
- Free Diagnostics and Transparent Reporting
- Emergency 48-Hour Critical Recovery Option Available
Our process ensures that no data is ever altered, and all work is performed on clones or forensic images. We understand the critical nature of business continuity and confidentiality — especially in the medical and professional services industry.
📞 Contact Cardiff Data Recovery Today
If your DELL PowerEdge RAID system has failed during a rebuild or is displaying unrecognised partitions, errors, or bad sectors — do not attempt a manual rebuild or software repair.
Contact Cardiff Data Recovery immediately for a free diagnostics. Our RAID engineers will stabilise the array, extract your data securely, and get your systems back online with minimal downtime.