RAID 0 Data Recovery

We specialise in RAID-0 (striped) data recovery across home, SME and enterprise environments—2-disk stripes through 32-disk high-throughput sets—on workstations, servers, DAS, and NAS (software and hardware RAIDs). We regularly handle escalations from large companies and public-sector teams.

Send-in instructions: label each disk with its original bay/slot order, place drives in anti-static bags, cushion them in a padded envelope or small box, include your contact details, and post or drop them in. We always clone members first, working read-only on the originals.

UK NAS brands we commonly see (with representative popular models)

1. Synology – DS224+, DS423+, DS723+, DS923+, DS1522+; RS1221+, RS3621xs+

2. QNAP – TS-464, TS-473A, TS-873A, TVS-h674; rack TS-x53DU/x73AU

3. Western Digital (WD) – My Cloud EX2 Ultra, EX4100, PR4100

4. Seagate / LaCie – LaCie 2big/6big/12big, Seagate IronWolf NAS enclosures

5. Buffalo – TeraStation 3420/5420/6420; LinkStation 220/520

6. NETGEAR – ReadyNAS RN424, RN524X, RN628X

7. TerraMaster – F2-423, F4-423, F5-422; U-series racks

8. ASUSTOR – AS5304T, AS6604T, LOCKERSTOR 4/8

9. Drobo (legacy) – 5N2, B810n

10. Thecus – N5810PRO, N7710-G

11. iXsystems – TrueNAS Mini X/XL, R-series

12. LenovoEMC (legacy) – ix2/ix4, px4

13. Zyxel – NAS542, NAS326

14. D-Link – DNS-320L, DNS-340L

15. Promise – VTrak/Vess

16. Ugreen – consumer NAS ranges

17. OWC – Jellyfish Mobile/Studio

18. QSAN – XN3002T, XN5004T

19. Infortrend – EonNAS

20. HPE StoreEasy – 1460/1660/1860

We recover from single/dual/quad-bay and rack models used with RAID-0 or “JBOD/stripe” modes.

Rack/workstation platforms often configured for RAID-0 (representative)

1. Dell EMC PowerEdge – R540/R640/R650/R750; T440/T640

2. HPE ProLiant – DL360/DL380 Gen10/11; ML350

3. Lenovo ThinkSystem – SR630/SR650; ST550

4. Supermicro SuperServer – 1029/2029/AS-series

5. Fujitsu PRIMERGY – RX2540; TX2550

6. Cisco UCS C-Series – C220/C240

7. Dell Precision workstations – 5820/7820/7920 with HBA/RAID-0 scratch sets

8. HP Z-Series workstations – Z4/Z6/Z8

9. Lenovo ThinkStation – P520/P720/P920

10. OVH/Hetzner-style bare-metal with LSI/Avago HBAs (common in hosted RAID-0)

11. Areca controller builds – ARC-1883/1886 series

12. Adaptec by Microchip – ASR-71605/71685/8405

13. Promise VTrak DAS sets

14. Infortrend EonStor GS/GX (DAS mode)

15. HighPoint NVMe/RAID accelerators (workstations)

What makes RAID-0 different (and hard)

RAID-0 provides performance through striping and zero redundancy. Recovery requires reconstructing exact geometry—member order, stripe unit size, start offset, parity (n/a), sector size (512e/4Kn)—then building a virtual array from clones before any filesystem repair. Any write to originals risks irrecoverable loss.

Our RAID-0 recovery workflow (what we actually do)

1. Forensic intake & mapping – record serials, bays, controller metadata, SMART; originals are write-blocked.

2. Clone every member first – hardware imagers (PC-3000/Atola/DDI) with unstable-media profiles: head-select, zone priority, reverse passes, adaptive timeouts.

3. Geometry discovery – infer disk order, stripe size, and offsets using parity-less cross-correlation, entropy dips at file headers (NTFS $MFT, APFS container headers, superblocks), and dynamic programming over candidate permutations.

4. Virtual assembly – build a read-only virtual RAID-0 atop the clones, normalising 512e/4Kn differences and trimming to the smallest common extent.

5. Filesystem/LUN repair – NTFS/ReFS, APFS/HFS+, EXT/XFS/ZFS/Btrfs: journal/intent replay, B-tree & bitmap repair, orphan grafting; no writes to members.

6. Verification & export – SHA-256 manifests, sample open tests (DB/video/mail), then secure delivery.

Top 75 RAID-0 errors we recover (and how we fix them)

Geometry & configuration

1. Unknown disk order → correlation of adjacent stripe tails/heads; validate against FS signatures.

2. Unknown stripe unit size → test 16–1024 KB; pick candidate with highest header alignment consistency.

3. Unknown start offset → detect superblocks/GPT at expected LBAs; adjust per-member offsets.

4. Mixed sector sizes (512e/4Kn) → translate LBAs during virtual build; align to logical sector.

5. Member added/removed without note → scan for stale stripe fragments; exclude alien members.

6. Controller migrated (metadata lost) → reconstruct via content analysis; ignore fresh empty headers.

7. Accidental quick-init → deep scan members; rebuild prior layout from remnants.

8. Accidental “create single disk” on a member → strip new partitioning; use underlying old data.

9. Disk reorder during service → infer from repeating pattern breaks; test permutations on small windows.

10. Misreported capacity after firmware update → trim to common size; re-align stripes.

Member/media failures (HDD/SSD/NVMe)

11. Head crash on one member → donor HSA; per-head imaging; accept holes; reconstruct from surviving members (no parity: expect partials).

12. Translator corruption (HDD) → rebuild translator from P/G-lists; image; fill virtual set with available ranges.

13. Spindle seizure → spindle swap/platter migration; image good zones.

14. Stiction → controlled release; immediate short-timeout clone.

15. Bad sector storms → reverse reads, small blocks, cool-down cycles; mark hole map.

16. Pre-amp short → HSA swap; bias test; image.

17. SSD controller lock → SAFE/ROM mode; extract FTL (L2P) map; clone namespace.

18. NAND wear/ECC maxed → majority-vote multi-reads; channel isolation; accept partial holes.

19. Power-loss metadata loss (SSD) → rebuild FTL/journals; if absent, chip-level dumps & reassembly (ECC/XOR/interleave).

20. NVMe namespace missing → admin cmds to enumerate; clone each namespace.

Enclosure, HBA & cabling issues

21. SATA/SAS CRC errors → replace path/backplane; re-image.

22. Expander link flaps → re-map enclosure; stabilise lanes; clone.

23. USB/UASP DAS resets → fall back to BOT; bench PSU; image.

24. Thunderbolt enclosure drops → limit link speed; firmware update; image.

25. Bridge-board failure → bypass to native SATA/NVMe; image from drive.

Controller/HBA behaviour

26. Write cache lost (BBU failure) → incoherent stripes; choose version using FS journals.

27. Driver bug (RST/fakeraid) → ignore driver view; ingest member metadata; assemble manually.

28. Foreign import wrote new headers → discard newest generation; select last consistent epoch.

29. Stripe size changed mid-life → segment by epoch; export from consistent spans.

30. Controller “initialised” after error → recover from deeper scan; ignore zeroed fronts when possible.

Filesystems on top of RAID-0

31. NTFS $MFT/$MFTMirr divergence → reconcile records; replay $LogFile; rebuild $Bitmap.

32. ReFS CoW inconsistency → roll back to consistent epoch via shadow copies.

33. APFS object map damage → rebuild OMAP/spacemaps; export snapshots.

34. HFS+ catalog/extent B-tree corrupt → rebuild trees; graft orphans.

35. EXT superblock/journal damage → use backup superblocks; fsck with replay; copy out.

36. XFS log corruption → xfs_repair (logzero when indicated); salvage trees.

37. ZFS on stripe (rare) → import readonly; zdb map; copy files.

38. Btrfs on stripe → btrfs-restore from consistent chunks.

Partition maps & boot metadata

39. GPT header overwritten → rebuild from secondary GPT & FS signatures.

40. Hybrid MBR/GPT mismatch (Boot Camp) → normalise to GPT; align LBA ranges.

41. Protective MBR only → recover GPT from secondary; mount LUN.

Administrative / human errors

42. Disk pulled live & reinserted elsewhere → identify epoch divergence; select coherent set.

43. Windows “initialize” clicked → ignore new label; recover old partitioning.

44. Linux mdadm created over old data → read superblocks; assemble prior array virtually.

45. NAS “factory reset” without wipe → scrape prior md/LVM metadata; rebuild.

46. DSM/QTS migration wrote new md layers → select last consistent md set; discard new.

47. Expanding capacity then abort → find pre-expand map; export from the stable region.

Performance/IO anomalies with data impact

48. Thermal throttling (NVMe stripe) → active cooling; reduced QD; staged imaging.

49. Voltage droop under load → bench PSU; stabilise rails; clone.

50. Frequent OS-level retries → avoid OS copy; hardware imager with strict timeouts.

Application/data-layer problems on RAID-0

51. VMFS datastore header damage → rebuild VMFS; stitch VMDKs.

52. Broken VMDK descriptor + intact flat → regenerate descriptor; mount VM.

53. Hyper-V AVHDX chain broken → fix parent IDs; merge diffs on image.

54. Large MOV/MP4 indexes lost → rebuild moov/mdat; GOP re-index.

55. PST/OST oversized/corrupt → low-level fix; export to new store.

56. SQL/SQLite with good WAL → salvage via WAL replay on clone.

Edge cases & legacy

57. Dynamic Disks (Windows) striped set → rebuild LDM metadata; rejoin extents.

58. Apple Software RAID-0 → parse Apple RAID headers; assemble virtually.

59. Old Promise/HighPoint meta → parse proprietary headers; reconstruct.

60. Mixed 4K/512e drives → normalise sector size in virtual build.

61. Counterfeit drive in stripe → map real capacity; handle wrap-around loss.

When rebuilds were (wrongly) attempted on RAID-0

62. “Rebuild” attempted (not applicable to RAID-0) → controller wrote parity/metadata garbage; roll back via earlier epoch content.

63. Attempted convert to RAID-1 mid-failure → discard partial mirror writes; recover from pre-convert span.

64. Software clone over a member → use surviving members + pre-failure backups; carve where possible.

65. Disk-to-disk copy with wrong alignment → detect misalignment; realign in virtual set.

NAS-specific stacks using RAID-0

66. Synology mdadm/LVM on stripe → reconstruct md arrays; reassemble LVM; mount ext4/btrfs.

67. QNAP similar stack → same approach; legacy ext3/4 support.

68. XFS on NAS stripe → xfs_repair on the LUN clone; export.

Physical/environmental damage

69. Drop shock to one member → mechanical path; partial hole map accepted.

70. Water ingress → controlled dry; corrosion mitigation; clone; virtual assemble.

71. Fire/heat damage → inspect packages; ECC-heavy imaging/dumps; partials.

Security/encryption on top of RAID-0

72. BitLocker over stripe → recovery key required; decrypt LUN image; repair FS.

73. FileVault/LUKS over stripe → require passphrase/key; decrypt on clone; rebuild FS.

74. SED/HW-encrypted NAS volume → need keys/PIN; otherwise carve plaintext remnants only.

75. Ransomware on stripe → pursue snapshots/versions/backups; carve unencrypted residues; test known decryptors off-line.

Why choose Sheffield Data Recovery

• 25+ years of RAID engineering, from small 2-disk stripes to 32-disk high-throughput arrays

• Clone-first, read-only process; advanced imagers and donor inventory for HDD/SSD/NVMe members

• Deep stack expertise: controllers/HBAs, filesystems, hypervisors, NAS layers

• Evidence-based reporting: SHA-256 manifests, sample-open verification

• Free diagnostics with clear recovery options before work begins

Contact our Sheffield RAID engineers today for a free diagnostic. Package the drives safely (anti-static + padded envelope/small box, labelled by slot/order) and post or drop them in—we’ll take it from there.