At Cardiff Data Recovery, we specialise in QNAP RAID 5 recovery and complex enterprise-level RAID failures. If you’ve accidentally swapped the RAID 5 disks in the wrong order on your QNAP NAS and now the system won’t start — especially with VHDX virtual systems involved — immediate expert intervention is essential.
With over 25 years of RAID recovery expertise, our engineers are highly experienced in restoring failed QNAP RAID arrays, including those involving virtual machines, critical business applications, and proprietary storage configurations.
⚠️ Understanding RAID 5 Disk Order Errors on QNAP
RAID 5 relies on precise disk ordering to rebuild parity and maintain redundancy. Swapping disks even temporarily can lead to:
- Inconsistent or corrupt parity blocks
- Failed rebuild attempts
- RAID marked as “Degraded” or “Inactive”
- Inaccessible data, especially in VHDX containers or other virtual environments
QNAP NAS systems often allow disk reordering at a hardware level, but the RAID array relies on metadata and controller logic to maintain order. Replacing drives incorrectly can corrupt this metadata, preventing the NAS from identifying or starting the array.
🛠️ Our QNAP RAID 5 Recovery Process – Step-by-Step
1. Initial Evaluation & Drive Imaging
- Each disk from the RAID array is removed and imaged sector-by-sector using write-blocking forensic tools
- Any disk showing physical issues (slow response, bad sectors) is stabilised before imaging
- The original order and serial numbers are logged to assist in metadata analysis
Recovery is performed entirely from cloned images, preserving your original disks and preventing further data loss.
2. RAID Configuration Analysis & Order Reconstruction
- We analyse QNAP-specific metadata from the disks to determine the original disk order and layout
- Stripe size, rotation pattern, block offset, and parity distribution are calculated
- A virtual RAID 5 array is built using reconstructed order and parameters, bypassing the QNAP firmware
This is a critical phase — a single misplaced disk can cause incorrect parity and further damage to VHDX or file data.
3. Mounting Virtual RAID Volume & File System Recovery
- The rebuilt virtual array is scanned for the original volume file system, typically EXT4, BTRFS, or XFS
- File system structures are repaired or reconstructed to access the top-level directory
- If file system corruption is extensive, raw carving and header-based recovery are used to identify files, including VHDX images
4. Virtual Machine Recovery (VHDX, VMDK, QCOW2)
- Located virtual disk containers (VHDX, etc.) are extracted in full
- We verify the integrity of each image and, if needed, recover guest OS files directly from the virtual disk
- Common data types include:
- Windows Server VM files
- SQL databases
- Office documents
- ERP/accounting software data
5. Data Export & Validation
- All recovered data is transferred to a new storage device
- Data is verified against checksums or expected file structures
- Directory hierarchies are preserved where possible, with special care taken for virtual environments and critical files
💼 Supported Systems & QNAP Devices
We support all QNAP RAID-enabled models, including:
- QNAP TS-x53, TS-x73, TS-x77 Series
- QNAP TVS-h1288X, TVS-872XT
- Enterprise QNAP rack-mount systems (TS-EC & TS-h Series)
- Virtualisation Station & Container Station environments
- Hybrid Backup Sync and Snapshots
Supported file systems:
- EXT4 / EXT3
- BTRFS
- XFS
- VHDX (Hyper-V), VMDK (VMware), QCOW2 (KVM)
✅ Why Choose Cardiff Data Recovery?
- 25+ years’ experience in RAID and NAS data recovery
- Advanced RAID emulation and QNAP-specific metadata decoding
- Custom tools for VHDX and virtual machine extraction
- Emergency 48-hour recovery service available
- Fully GDPR-compliant and confidential
- Free diagnostic and technical assessment
Our team has recovered QNAP RAID 5 arrays for legal firms, medical practices, architects, and manufacturing companies where downtime simply wasn’t an option.
📞 Contact Cardiff Data Recovery Today
If your QNAP RAID 5 array is inaccessible after swapping the drives or encountering a failed rebuild, do not reinitialise or attempt manual RAID recreation — it may overwrite key data.
Contact Cardiff Data Recovery today for a free diagnostic. We are your trusted experts in QNAP RAID 5 recovery, restoring business-critical virtual machines and data with precision and care.