Leicester Data Recovery – No.1 RAID 5 & RAID 10 Data Recovery Specialists (25+ Years)

With over 25 years’ expertise, Leicester Data Recovery recovers complex RAID 5 and RAID 10 systems for home users, SMEs, multinationals and public-sector teams across Leicester, Coventry, and the Midlands. We handle software and hardware arrays, NAS, rack servers and external multi-bay DAS—covering controller faults, failed rebuilds, disk/media issues, metadata corruption, filesystem damage and encrypted volumes (with valid keys).

Platforms & File Systems We Handle

• RAID levels: RAID 5 (single-parity), RAID 10 (striped mirrors), nested variants (e.g., 50/60 parent sets feeding 10s), JBOD where misconfigured.

• File systems: NTFS, ReFS, APFS/HFS+, ext3/ext4, XFS, Btrfs, ZFS, VMFS, exFAT.

• Controllers / software: Broadcom/LSI MegaRAID, Adaptec/Microchip, Areca, Dell PERC, HPE Smart Array, IBM/Lenovo ServeRAID, Intel RST/VROC, mdadm/LVM, Windows Dynamic/Storage Spaces, Synology/QNAP mdadm, TrueNAS/ZoL.

• Encryption (lawful, with keys): BitLocker, FileVault, LUKS, VeraCrypt.

15 Major NAS Brands in the UK (with representative popular models)

1. Synology – DS923+, DS423+, RS3621xs+, DS220+

2. QNAP – TS-453D, TS-673A, TVS-h874, TS-431K

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

4. Netgear ReadyNAS – RN424, RN524X, RR2304

5. Buffalo – TeraStation TS3420DN/TS3420RN, LinkStation LS220D

6. Seagate / LaCie – LaCie 2big/6big/12big; Seagate NAS Pro (legacy)

7. Asustor – AS5304T, Lockerstor 4/8 (AS6704T/AS6708T)

8. TerraMaster – F4-423, F2-423, T9-423

9. Thecus – N5810PRO, N7710-G (legacy)

10. ioSafe (Synology-based) – 218/1522+ derivatives

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

12. Drobo (legacy) – 5N/5N2, B810n

13. LenovoEMC / Iomega (legacy) – ix2/ix4/px4-300d

14. Zyxel – NAS326, NAS540

15. D-Link – DNS-320L, DNS-340L

(If your NAS isn’t listed, we still support it.)

15 Rack-Server Vendors Used for RAID 5/10 (with example models)

1. Dell EMC – PowerEdge R740/R750/R760, R540, R640

2. HPE – ProLiant DL380 Gen10/Gen11, DL360, ML350

3. Lenovo – ThinkSystem SR650/SR630, SR645

4. Supermicro – SuperServer 2029/6029/1029 families

5. Fujitsu – PRIMERGY RX2540/RX2520

6. Cisco – UCS C-Series C220/C240 M5–M7

7. Gigabyte Server – R272/R282 series

8. ASUS Server – RS520/RS720, ESC workstations

9. Tyan – Thunder/Transport 1U/2U ranges

10. QCT (Quanta) – D52BQ/D43K series

11. Inspur – NF5280M6/M7

12. Huawei – FusionServer Pro 2288H

13. IBM (legacy System x) – x3650/x3550 M4/M5

14. Intel (legacy platforms) – S2600-based racks

15. Apple (legacy) – Mac Pro racks with external RAID HBAs (ATTO/Areca)

Our Professional RAID Recovery Workflow

1. Evidence-safe intake & per-disk imaging – Hardware imagers (PC-3000, Atola, DeepSpar), head-maps, adaptive timeouts, power-cycle strategy. Never rebuild on originals.

2. Geometry & metadata discovery – Determine disk order, start offsets, block/stripe size, parity rotation (RAID 5) and mirror layout (RAID 10), using controller/NAS superblocks and on-disk signatures.

3. Virtual array reconstruction – Assemble the array from images only; for RAID 10 select best sector per mirror-pair; for RAID 5 account for parity rotation and write-hole effects.

4. File-system repair – Read-only mount and repair NTFS/ReFS/APFS/ext4/XFS/Btrfs/ZFS/VMFS; journal/log replay; metadata rebuild; targeted carving.

5. Verification & hand-over – Hash checks, sample-open critical files/VMs/DBs, structured delivery.

40 RAID 5 & RAID 10 Errors We Recover From – With Technical Notes

RAID 5 tolerates one failed member; RAID 10 tolerates one failed disk per mirror-pair. Techniques differ: parity math for RAID 5 vs. “best-of” sector selection across mirrors for RAID 10.

Geometry / Layout / Controller

1. Unknown disk order – Fix: superblock parsing + entropy/marker matching across stripes; infer order by serial/WWN and content alignment.

2. Unknown stripe/block size – Fix: heuristic trials (16–1024 KB), validate by FS header alignment and consistency scans.

3. Unknown start offset – Fix: locate FS anchors (NTFS $MFT, APFS NXSB, XFS superblock) to pin array offsets.

4. Parity rotation ambiguity (RAID 5) – Fix: test left/right, synchronous/asynchronous rotation; choose pattern with consistent parity checks.

5. RAID 10 interleave ambiguity – Fix: map mirror pairs first; infer stripe interleave from repeating structures and FS continuity.

6. Capacity mismatch across members – Fix: trim images to smallest common LBA; reconstruct within shared capacity.

7. HPA/DCO on one or more members – Fix: virtually remove HPA/DCO in images; re-equalise capacity before assembly.

8. 512e vs 4Kn sector mismatch – Fix: normalise sector size at imaging; rebuild with consistent geometry.

9. Controller changed parameters after swap – Fix: ignore new metadata; rebuild from raw images using historical geometry.

10. Write-hole / cache tear (power loss) – Fix: FS journal/log replay; for RAID 5 reconcile stripes by parity and majority-data selection.

Disk/Media Failures

11. Single-disk failure (RAID 5) – Fix: image failing member; reconstruct missing stripes via parity with surviving images.

12. Two disks failed non-overlapping (RAID 10) – Fix: choose surviving partner from each mirror; rebuild striped set from intact mirrors.

13. Two disks failed overlapping (RAID 10 same mirror) – Fix: invasive imaging of the worse member; merge best-of sectors to restore that mirror.

14. Latent bad sectors during rebuild – Fix: halt rebuild; per-disk imaging with skip/late-fill; for RAID 5 compute missing blocks where possible.

15. Head degradation on one member – Fix: head-map imaging; donor head swap only if required; prioritise unaffected heads.

16. SSD uncorrectables (NAND wear/retention) – Fix: ECC-aware reads, voltage/temperature tuning, soft decoding; prefer healthier copy (RAID 10) or parity reconstruct (RAID 5).

17. NVMe link instability – Fix: lock lanes/speeds; reset flows; image via stable HBA/bus.

18. SAS expander/backplane faults – Fix: detach and image each drive direct to HBA; ignore flaky expander in reconstruction.

Controller / Metadata / NVRAM

19. Controller NVRAM loss (config forgotten) – Fix: harvest on-disk metadata (mdadm/DDF/ZFS/Btrfs labels); compute geometry; virtual rebuild.

20. Foreign import mis-maps array – Fix: discard foreign mapping; assemble from images with validated geometry.

21. Firmware bug scribbles metadata – Fix: copy metadata from mirrors; hand-edit known fields; validate against FS.

22. BBU/cache failure causing torn writes – Fix: favour copy with clean journal; journal/log replay; parity/majority checks on suspect stripes.

23. Controller swap between models – Fix: ignore controller; reconstruct from raw images; only use controller for pass-through if stable.

24. Cache with stale stripes re-introduced – Fix: detect staleness by timestamps/checksums; prefer newest consistent data blocks.

Human / Operational Errors

25. Wrong disk pulled – Fix: identify good/failed via SMART/serial history; rebuild virtually from correct set.

26. Accidental “Create / Initialise” on existing array – Fix: prior data persists beyond small metadata windows; deep scan for old FS; restore historical layout.

27. Rebuild targeted to wrong disk – Fix: roll back using pre-rebuild images; choose freshest member as source; discard stale.

28. Members re-inserted in wrong bays – Fix: re-order by serials/WWN; parity validation; FS continuity test.

29. Mixed clones with live members – Fix: select coherent generation; exclude stale clone in virtual build.

30. OS reinstalled on top of array – Fix: scan for prior partition/FS; rebuild trees; export user data.

Rebuild / Degrade Behaviour

31. RAID 5 rebuild abort mid-way – Fix: image all members; resume virtually from last consistent LBA using parity to fill gaps.

32. RAID 10 resync divergence – Fix: sector-by-sector compare; construct “best-of” bitmap; prefer majority or newest valid sectors per mirror.

33. Patrol read triggers second failure – Fix: stop controller; image immediately; merge best-of reads; then rebuild virtually.

34. Hot-spare promotion with stale data – Fix: detect staleness; exclude stale ranges; recompute/realign stripes.

File System on Top of RAID

35. NTFS $MFT/$MFTMirr damage – Fix: rebuild from mirror and $LogFile; orphan recovery; attribute stream repair.

36. ReFS integrity stream errors – Fix: salvage block-cloned data; export intact objects; metadata repair.

37. APFS container/volume tree corruption – Fix: parse checkpoints; rebuild B-trees; restore volume groups; recover user space.

38. ext4 superblock/journal loss – Fix: alternate superblocks; journal replay; inode table rebuild.

39. XFS log corruption – Fix: xlog replay; inode btree/dir leaf repair.

40. VMFS datastore header/extent loss – Fix: reconstruct VMFS partition map; stitch extents; mount read-only; export VMs.

What We Recover From (Drives & Appliances)

• Disks commonly found in arrays: Seagate, Western Digital (WD), Toshiba, Samsung, HGST, Crucial/Micron, Kingston, SanDisk (WD), ADATA, Corsair, Fujitsu, Maxtor (legacy) and others.

• Appliances & HBAs: Dell EMC, HPE, Synology, QNAP, NetApp, WD, Seagate/LaCie, Buffalo, Drobo (legacy), Netgear, Lenovo, Intel, ASUS, Promise, IBM, Adaptec/Microchip, Areca, Thecus—among others.

Packaging & Intake

Please package drives securely in a padded envelope or small box, include your contact details inside, and post or drop off during business hours. For NAS/rack servers, contact us first—we’ll advise the safest imaging plan to preserve evidence and maximise recovery.

Why Leicester Data Recovery?

• 25+ years of RAID and multi-disk recoveries

• Per-disk hardware imaging and non-destructive virtual rebuilds

• Deep expertise in parity analysis (RAID 5) and mirror best-of sector selection (RAID 10), controller metadata analysis and filesystem reconstruction

• Clear engineer-to-engineer communication and accelerated options for urgent cases

Contact Our RAID 5 & RAID 10 Engineers – Free Diagnostics

Tell us what happened (brand/model, drive count, symptoms, anything already attempted). We’ll advise the safest next step immediately.