Norwich Data Recovery — No.1 RAID 0 Recovery Specialists

25+ years’ RAID experience. We recover RAID 0 (stripe) sets for home users, SMEs, large enterprises and public-sector teams—from 2-disk stripes to 32-disk high-throughput arrays. Free diagnostics and clear options before any work begins. Best-value, engineering-led recoveries.

Note: RAID 0 has no redundancy (no parity, no mirroring). If any member disk is unreadable, the whole volume goes down. Our workflow focuses on stabilising each member, producing verified clones, then virtually reassembling the stripe to restore files safely.

RAID 0 Platforms We Handle

• Software & Hardware RAID: Windows Dynamic Disks, mdadm/LVM (Linux), Apple (older CoreStorage/APFS stripe), controller-based stripes (PERC/SmartArray/LSI/Areca/Adaptec).

• NAS/DAS & Rack: Synology, QNAP, Netgear, WD, Buffalo, Asustor, TerraMaster, LaCie, Promise, Drobo*, TrueNAS; Dell EMC, HPE, Lenovo, Supermicro, Cisco, etc.

• Filesystems: NTFS, ReFS, exFAT, FAT32, ext2/3/4, XFS, Btrfs, ZFS (striped vdevs), HFS+, APFS.

• Media: 2.5″/3.5″ HDD, SATA/NVMe SSD (M.2/U.2), SAS, USB-bridged disks/enclosures.

Top 15 NAS / External RAID Brands in the UK & Popular Models

(Common deployments we see in lab—if yours isn’t listed, we still support it.)

1. Synology — DS923+, DS1522+, DS224+, RS1221+/RS2421+

2. QNAP — TS-464/TS-453D, TVS-h674, TS-873A, TS-451D2

3. Netgear ReadyNAS — RN424/RN524X, 2304, 528X

4. Western Digital (WD) — My Cloud EX2 Ultra, PR4100, DL2100

5. Buffalo — TeraStation TS3410DN/5410DN, LinkStation LS220D

6. Asustor — AS6704T (Lockerstor 4), AS5304T (Nimbustor 4)

7. TerraMaster — F4-423, F5-422, T9-423

8. LaCie (Seagate) — 2big/6big/12big (often striped as RAID 0 for speed)

9. Drobo — 5D/5C/5N2 (legacy; “BeyondRAID” can be configured as stripes)

10. Promise — Pegasus R4/R6/R8, VTrak (DAS used in RAID 0 for editing)

11. TrueNAS / iXsystems — Mini X+, R-series (striped vdev pools)

12. LenovoEMC/Iomega — PX4-300D/PX6-300D (legacy)

13. Seagate — Business Storage/BlackArmor (legacy)

14. Zyxel — NAS326, NAS542

15. OWC — ThunderBay 4/8, Envoy Pro FX (host-managed RAID 0)

Top 15 Rack/Server Platforms Commonly Deployed with RAID 0 (and Popular Models)

1. Dell EMC PowerEdge — R650/R750/R760, R740xd

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

3. Lenovo ThinkSystem — SR630/SR650, ST550

4. Supermicro — 1029/2029/6049/7049, SuperStorage 6029/6049

5. Cisco UCS — C220/C240 M5/M6

6. Fujitsu PRIMERGY — RX2530/RX2540

7. Inspur — NF5280M6/M7

8. Huawei — FusionServer Pro 2288/5288

9. QCT (Quanta) — D52B-1U / D52BQ-2U

10. ASUS — RS520/RS700 series

11. Tyan — Thunder/Transport (1U/2U)

12. IBM/System x (legacy) — x3550/x3650 M4/M5

13. Areca (controller-centric) — ARC-1883/1886 in generic chassis

14. Adaptec by Microchip — SmartRAID 31xx/32xx based servers

15. NetApp/Promise/LSI JBODs — as striped JBOD behind HBAs for HPC/scratch

Our RAID 0 Recovery Method (What Happens in the Lab)

1. Free Diagnostic & Intake

   • Record controller/NAS metadata, disk order, enclosure model/firmware, SMART stats, and any errors/logs.

   • Evidence-grade case notes available on request.

2. Stabilise & Image Each Member (No Work on Originals)

   • Hardware imagers with per-head zoning, read-timeout budgeting, error-skip windows, ECC controls.

   • SSD/NVMe: read-retry/voltage stepping, thermal control; if controller-dead → chip-off + FTL reconstruction.

3. Virtual Stripe Reconstruction

   • Infer stripe size, member order, start offsets, and any gaps/misalignment from filesystem signatures and entropy analysis.

   • Build a virtual RAID 0 over the cloned images, never the originals.

4. Filesystem Repair & Export

   • Repair superblocks, journals, B-trees (e.g., NTFS $MFT/$LogFile, APFS checkpoints/omap, ext4 backup superblocks).

   • Mount read-only and export validated data.

5. Verification & Delivery

   • Per-file hash verification (MD5/SHA-256), sample-file testing, and secure hand-off (encrypted disk or secure transfer).

Overwrites: Once data blocks are truly overwritten (e.g., after long operation on a degraded set), they cannot be “decrypted.” We target pre-overwrite regions, snapshots, journals, replicas and unaffected sources.

Top 40 RAID 0 Failures We Recover — With Technical Approach

Format: Issue → Diagnosis → Lab Recovery (on clones/virtual array)

1. Single member disk mechanical failure → SMART/terminal, head current traces → Head-stack donor match, ROM adaptives verify, low-stress imaging; rejoin image to virtual stripe.

2. Multiple member mechanical failures → Error heatmap across members → Sequential donor work per disk; prioritise members holding most unique extents; assemble virtual stripe from partial/full images.

3. NVMe SSD controller dead in stripe → No enumerate / admin cmds fail → Chip-off per-die dumps; FTL rebuild (ECC BCH/LDPC, XOR/scrambler, interleave); produce raw image for virtual assembly.

4. SATA SSD retention loss (cold storage) → Unstable reads → Temperature-controlled imaging, voltage stepping and retry matrices; merge best-quality passes; rebuild stripe.

5. PMIC/LDO failure on SSD → Rail collapse → Replace PMIC; if controller still non-functional → chip-off + FTL; integrate image.

6. Bad sectors on one HDD member → Concentrated error bands → Head-map imaging with skip windows; fill holes using file-level carving across stripe boundaries to salvage partials.

7. USB/Thunderbolt enclosure bridge failure → Drive OK bare, not in box → Bypass bridge; attach bare drives; image each, then reconstruct.

8. Unknown stripe size/order after controller swap → No metadata → Brute-force geometry solver using FS signatures (NTFS boot, MFT runlists, APFS containers); choose config with highest structural consistency.

9. Member order changed by hot-swap → Entropy drift per chunk → Order solver; validate via path count and file-hash spot checks.

10. Start-offset mismatch (hidden metadata areas) → Misaligned partitions → Detect offset via GPT/FS headers; adjust virtual map; mount RO.

11. Accidental “initialize disk” in OS → GPT overwritten → Carve backup GPT/FS headers; reconstruct partition + virtual stripe.

12. Accidental quick format on the stripe → Boot sectors replaced → Rebuild partition/boot sectors on image; journal-aware undelete; export.

13. Windows Dynamic Disk stripe metadata loss → LDM database damaged → Recover LDM from backups on member ends; if missing, infer via runlists; assemble.

14. mdadm RAID0 superblock damage → Superblock missing → Parse residual superblocks; compute chunk size from data; reassemble virtually.

15. Controller NVRAM reset (PERC/SmartArray/LSI) → Geometry lost → Infer chunk/order/offset via signature/entropy; avoid auto-init; build virtual stripe.

16. Disk with 4Kn mixed into 512e set → Sector-size mismatch → Normalise to common logical sector in virtual model; verify FS integrity.

17. Hot-spare erroneously added as member → Stripe altered → Identify epoch change; choose pre-event layout; exclude spare image.

18. Write-hole/unclean shutdown during heavy I/O → Incomplete writes → Prefer older copy of borderline extents (majority/consistency heuristic); replay FS journal on assembled image.

19. Firmware bug causing LBA remap on member → Translator anomaly → Detect shifted regions; create corrective mapping layer for that image; continue.

20. SMR disk in high-pressure workload → Internal GC stalls + reallocation → Very slow imaging with long timeouts; integrate partials; carve where needed.

21. HDD ROM/adaptive loss → No ID/SA access → SPI ROM transplant; regenerate adaptives; image.

22. Preamp failure on HDD → Abnormal head bias → HSA swap; conservative imaging; rejoin.

23. Dropped array; off-track seeking → PES errors → Micro-alignment after head swap; short-burst imaging; merge.

24. LaCie/Promise dual-bay striped DAS not mounting → Bridge metadata only → Bypass bridge; treat as raw stripe; solve geometry; mount.

25. mdadm assembled wrong order once; user copied data → Overwrite contamination → Use pre-contamination clones; ignore late writes; export from pre-event assembly.

26. TRIM on SSD stripe after deletion → Physical blocks erased → Limited recovery; target untrimmed areas, caches, temp files, app-level artefacts.

27. NVMe link flaps under heat → PCIe resets → Clamp link speed, active cooling; staged imaging; merge.

28. Member intermittently drops (SATA cable/backplane) → CRC errors in logs → Replace cabling/backplane only after imaging; use minimal-queue imaging; reconstruct.

29. Host upgraded filesystem version → New structures on old data → Mount read-only via correct FS version; export; avoid in-place upgrades.

30. BitLocker/FileVault/LUKS on top of RAID 0 → Encrypted stripe → Full LUN image first; decrypt with valid keys; mount RO and export.

31. APFS container spanning stripe damaged → Checkpoint/omap issues → Walk checkpoints; rebuild object map; mount RO; copy data.

32. NTFS $MFT/$LogFile corruption → Incomplete transactions → Replay $LogFile; rebuild MFT entries; relink orphans; export.

33. ReFS integrity streams mismatched → Copy-on-write artefacts → Prefer blocks with valid checksums; export consistent items.

34. ext4 superblock/inode table damage → Use backup superblocks; offline fsck-like repair on image; recover.

35. XFS log corruption → Manual log replay on assembled LUN; directory rebuild; export.

36. Btrfs striped subvol with metadata errors → Superblock triplet voting → Select best pair; tree-search root; export subvolumes/snapshots.

37. Virtualised stripe inside VMDK/VHDX → Nested layout → Recover outer VM disk chain; then reconstruct inner RAID0; mount and export.

38. Controller-managed cache failure → Lost write-back → Journal-first recovery on assembled LUN; validate DBs/VMs with app-level checks.

39. User “chkdsk /f” on broken stripe → Further damage → Roll back to pre-repair image; ignore damaged run fixes; rebuild via journals/signatures.

40. Long-running copy onto failing member → Progressive media loss → Early-pass fast imaging to capture easy sectors first; second-pass targeted re-reads; assemble best composite image.

Why Norwich Data Recovery

• 25 years in business with thousands of successful RAID/NAS recoveries

• Multi-vendor expertise (controllers, NAS OSs, filesystems, HDD/SSD/NVMe)

• Advanced tooling & donor inventory to maximise recovery outcomes

• Free diagnostics with clear, fixed options before any paid work begins

• Optional priority turnaround (~48 hours) where device condition allows

Speak to an Engineer

Contact our Norwich RAID engineers today for a free diagnostic. We’ll stabilise your members, reconstruct the stripe virtually, and recover your data with forensic-grade care.