Reading Data Recovery — UK No.1 RAID 0/1/5/10 Specialists (25+ years)

As the UK’s leading nas and raid data recovery service, we deliver enterprise-grade raid and server data recovery services across DAS, NAS and SAN platforms—mirrors, parity and striped sets—backed by a controller-aware workflow and a clone-first methodology. From SME file servers to hyperscale arrays, our enterprise hard drive raid data recovery services include dual-parity reconstructions and reshape repairs via our dedicated raid 6 data recovery service.

What we actually do (engineering workflow)

1. Forensic intake & isolation – Photograph cabling/order, export configs/NVRAM, block all writes, inventory encryption.

2. Member stabilisation & imaging – Hardware imagers (PC-3000/Atola/DDI) with current-limited power, per-head zoning for HDDs, admin-command imaging for NVMe/SSD; PCB/ROM, head-stack or motor work completed before cloning.

3. Virtual array assembly – Infer order/rotation/stripe size/parity math (RAID-0/1/5/6/10/50/60), correct offsets, reconstruct mdadm/LVM/Storage Spaces/ZFS/Btrfs/SHR metadata; build a read-only virtual RAID over the images.

4. Logical recovery – Repair containers and file systems (NTFS, XFS, EXT, ReFS, HFS+, APFS, exFAT), recover iSCSI LUNs/VMFS/VHDX/VMDK.

5. Verification & delivery – SHA-256 manifests, sample-open testing of critical files, secure hand-over.

Top NAS brands sold in the UK (representative popular models)

1. Synology — DS224+, DS423+, DS723+, DS923+, DS1522+, RS1221(RP)+, RS3621xs+

2. QNAP — TS-233, TS-464, TS-873A, TVS-h674, TS-1253U-RP

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

4. Buffalo — LinkStation 520, TeraStation 3420/5420/5820

5. NETGEAR — ReadyNAS RN214/RN424, RR2304, RN528X

6. TerraMaster — F2-423, F4-423, T9-423, U4-423

7. ASUSTOR — AS5304T (Nimbustor 4), AS6704T (Lockerstor 4), AS6508T

8. LaCie (Seagate) — 2big Dock, 5big (business lines)

9. iXsystems — TrueNAS Mini X/X+, TrueNAS R-Series

10. LenovoEMC/Iomega (legacy) — ix2/ix4, px4-300d, px12-450r

11. Thecus (legacy) — N2810, N4810, N5810PRO

12. Drobo (legacy/discontinued) — 5N/5N2, B810n

13. D-Link — ShareCenter DNS-327L, DNS-340L

14. Zyxel — NAS326, NAS542

15. QSAN — XCubeNAS XN3002T/XN5004T, XN7008R

16. Promise — Vess R2000 (NAS roles)

17. HPE StoreEasy — 1460/1560/1860

18. Dell (PowerVault NX) — NX3240/NX440

19. Nexsan (StorCentric) — UNITY 2200/3500 with NAS roles

20. Seagate (legacy NAS) — BlackArmor, NAS Pro

15 RAID/rack server platforms we recover (examples)

1. Dell PowerEdge — R650/R750/R740xd, T440

2. HPE ProLiant — DL360/380 Gen10–11, ML350 Gen10

3. Lenovo ThinkSystem — SR630/SR650, ST550

4. Supermicro SuperServer — SYS-1029/2029/1114 families

5. Cisco UCS C-Series — C220/C240 M6

6. Fujitsu PRIMERGY — RX2540 M6, TX2550 M5

7. ASUS Server — RS520/RS720-E11

8. GIGABYTE Server — R272/R282

9. Synology RackStation — RS1221(RP)+, RS3621xs+

10. QNAP Rackmount — TS-873AU-RP, TS-1253U-RP, TVS-h1288X

11. HPE StoreEasy (rack) — 1660/1860

12. Dell PowerVault NX — NX3240/NX440

13. Promise VTrak/Vess — E5000/R2000

14. Nexsan — UNITY/E-Series

15. NetApp FAS/AFF (NAS roles) — FAS27xx/AFF A250

75 RAID errors we recover — and how we fix them

Format: Problem summary — Lab resolution (technical)

Disk/media failures

1. RAID-5: one disk failed (degraded) — Clone weak member with tiny blocks; assemble virtual set; recompute parity to fill unread sectors; mount read-only.

2. RAID-6: two disks failed — Clone both; reconstruct missing stripes via dual parity (P+Q Reed–Solomon); repair upper FS on the image.

3. Hot-spare rebuild started then second failure — Image at current state; roll back to pre-rebuild generation by superblock events; heal torn stripes via FS journal.

4. Pending sectors avalanche on a member — Per-head imaging; aggressive skip-on-timeout; parity fills mapped holes.

5. Head crash on a member — Donor HSA swap; low-stress imaging; parity substitutes unrecoverable LBAs.

6. Translator corruption (0 LBA / no access) — Regenerate translator from P/G lists; clone; rebuild array.

7. Spindle seizure — Platter migration to matched chassis; servo alignment; image outer→inner; fill with parity.

8. Bridge board flapping (USB/SATA in NAS bay) — Bypass to native interface; clone; resume assembly.

9. SMR disk stalls — Disable relocation; enforce sequential imaging; rebuild after stabilisation.

10. SSD retention loss (TLC/QLC) — Temperature-assisted multi-read and majority voting; chip-off + ECC/XOR/FTL rebuild if mapping is lost.

11. SSD controller SAFE mode — Vendor admin imaging; failing that, raw NAND dumps → L2P reconstruction; inject recovered image.

12. Bad sectors during expand/reshape — Clone first; compute both pre/post layouts; choose coherent parity generation; extract data.

Controller/HBA/backplane issues

13. Controller failure (PERC/SmartArray/Adaptec) — Clone members; rebuild from on-disk metadata; emulate controller virtually.

14. Foreign config overwrote good metadata — Carve earlier superblocks; select coherent generation; ignore “foreign” write set.

15. Stripe size changed by firmware update — Parity-consistency search; assemble with stripe size that maximises parity validity.

16. Cache/BBU failure (write-back lost) — Expect write-hole; correct torn stripes with NTFS/XFS/EXT journals; parity maths for residue.

17. Backplane/cable CRC storms — Rehost on stable HBA; lock link speed; clone with CRC counters; assemble from clean images.

18. HBA mode toggled (RAID→HBA) — Normalize device IDs/sector sizes; respect offsets; reconstruct array mapping in software.

19. Firmware “background init” re-striped data — Pick pre-init metadata generation; assemble that state and export.

Human/operational errors

20. Wrong disk pulled from degraded RAID-5 — Identify good vs failed member by parity chronology; assemble with correct set.

21. Accidental quick-init/re-initialisation — Recover old headers/superblocks; ignore new metadata; rebuild previous geometry.

22. Member order shuffled in DIY rebuild — Programmatic order/rotation inference via parity correlation/entropy; lock valid permutation.

23. Migration to different controller family — Translate metadata (e.g., Adaptec→mdadm); software assemble; mount read-only.

24. Expand with mismatched capacities — Normalise geometry to smallest LBA; mask OOB extents; repair FS on the image.

25. Hot-add introduced stale spare as active — Detect stale write set; exclude; rebuild from consistent members.

Parity/geometry anomalies

26. Unknown stripe/rotation — Automated search (16–1024 KiB) with parity scoring; select highest-score layout.

27. Write-hole after power loss — Detect torn stripes; heal via FS journals/snapshots; parity completes.

28. mdadm reshape half-completed — Compute both layouts from event counters; export the coherent one.

29. Nested parity inconsistency (RAID-50/60) — Heal inner RAID-5/6 segments first, then outer RAID-0.

30. Offset shift from enclosure — Locate true data starts by signature; correct offsets in the virtual stack.

31. 512e/4Kn mix inside set — Normalise sector size in the virtual device; realign GPT/partitions before FS work.

32. Endianness mismatch after platform move — Byte-swap virtual device; mount accordingly.

33. RTC/time skew across members — Prefer parity chronology over timestamps; select coherent generation.

34. Duplicate GUIDs after hot-swap glitch — De-duplicate by UUID+event counter; drop stale twin.

35. Tail metadata truncated by USB dock — Re-image via proper HBA; recover end-of-disk metadata; assemble.

File systems & volume managers

36. NTFS MFT/$Bitmap divergence — Replay $LogFile; rebuild indexes; graft orphans; export to clean media.

37. XFS AG B-tree corruption — Replay log; rebuild from secondary superblocks; copy out files.

38. EXT4 dirty journal — Journal replay on the image; carve residual content; reconstruct directories.

39. ReFS epoch conflict — Mount consistent epoch/snapshot; extract intact data.

40. LVM metadata loss — Carve PV/VG headers; reconstruct VG map; activate LVs read-only; repair inner FS.

41. Windows Storage Spaces degraded — Parse NB metadata; rebuild virtual disk from slab maps; mount NTFS.

42. ZFS pool faulted (non-encrypted) — Import on images (zpool import -F), scrub, copy datasets/snapshots.

43. Btrfs RAID-5/6 write-hole/bugs — Use btrfs restore to extract subvolumes/snapshots without mounting rw.

44. HFS+/APFS on top of md/LVM — Rebuild container; fix catalog/OMAP; mount read-only and export.

NAS-specific (Synology/QNAP/others)

45. Synology SHR across mixed sizes — Assemble md sets; compute SHR mapping; rebuild LVM/EXT4 or Btrfs; export shares.

46. Synology Btrfs checksum errors — Extract with btrfs restore from consistent trees/snapshots.

47. QNAP mdadm + LVM (Ext4) metadata conflict — Select coherent superblocks by event; rebuild LVM; mount extents.

48. QNAP QuTS hero (ZFS) pool faulted — Import read-only on clones; recover datasets/zvols; mount inner FS.

49. Thin-provisioned iSCSI LUN file corrupt — Carve LUN; loop-mount; run FS repair inside the virtual disk.

50. NAS OS update rewrote GPT — Recover prior GPT from backups/secondary headers; correct offsets; assemble md/LVM.

Virtualisation & applications

51. VMFS datastore header damage (ESXi) — Rebuild VMFS metadata; enumerate VMDK chains; mount guest FS and export.

52. Hyper-V AVHDX chain broken — Repair parent/child links; merge snapshots; mount VHDX; extract data.

53. KVM qcow2 overlay lost — Recreate overlay mapping with base; mount guest FS.

54. Exchange/SQL after crash — Replay ESE/SQL logs on cloned volumes; dump mailboxes/tables.

55. Veeam repository corruption (ReFS/XFS) — Rehydrate block store by hash; reconstruct VBK/VIB chains.

56. CCTV NVR over RAID cyclic overwrite — Carve H.264/H.265 GOPs; rebuild timelines; document overwritten gaps.

57. Time Machine sparsebundle on NAS damaged — Rebuild band catalog; extract versions; ignore corrupt bands.

Encryption/security

58. BitLocker on top of RAID — Unlock via recovery key; proceed with standard FS repair on image.

59. LUKS/dm-crypt — Open with passphrase/header backup; map decrypted device; mount read-only.

60. Self-encrypting drives in arrays (SED) — Unlock each member via PSID/user creds; image plaintext; assemble array.

Edge/tricky faults

61. Controller migration lost 64-bit LBA flag — Correct word size; re-read superblocks; assemble.

62. Write-back cache journal lost — Heal torn stripes via FS logs; parity maths for leftovers.

63. RAID-10 mirror divergence — Pick most recent by bitmap/journal; reconstruct stripes from good halves.

64. Silent RAM corruption in NAS — Use ZFS/Btrfs checksums to select good blocks; drop inconsistent stripes.

65. Hybrid RAID/JBOD mix — Identify stand-alone LUNs; extract directly; assemble RAID separately.

66. Nested stacks (hwRAID → mdadm → LVM → FS) — Peel layers in order; validate boundaries; export.

67. Snapshot bloat forced read-only — Copy from snapshots; thin after migration.

68. Cloud sync pushed encrypted files to NAS — Restore server-side versions/recycle bins; remap paths.

69. Foreign metadata partially overwritten — Carve older superblocks; select highest coherent event; assemble.

70. USB dock truncated end-of-disk — Re-image via SAS/SATA HBA exposing full LBA; recover tail metadata.

71. Cache SSD poisoning pool data — Bypass cache; assemble HDD pool; copy data; rebuild cache later.

72. Qtier/tiering mis-map — Rebuild tier maps from metadata; export by logical extents.

73. mdadm bitmaps out-of-date — Ignore stale bitmap; parity-validate stripes and rebuild.

74. ZFS pool missing SLOG/L2ARC — Import ignoring cache/log; copy datasets; reconstruct later.

75. NAS OS reinstall created new array over old — Find prior md sets by UUID/event; assemble old VG/LVs; mount read-only and extract.

20 common issues with “virtual” RAID/NAS stacks (QNAP, Synology, Drobo, etc.)

1. QNAP thin iSCSI LUN corruption — Carve LUN; loop-mount; repair inner FS (NTFS/EXT/VMFS).

2. QNAP QuTS hero ZFS pool fault — Import on clones; export datasets/zvols safely.

3. QNAP Qtier mis-mapping — Rebuild tier maps; export by logical extents.

4. QNAP SSD cache metadata loss — Bypass cache; assemble HDD pool; copy data.

5. QNAP expansion aborted mid-way — Revert to pre-expansion generation; assemble and export.

6. Synology SHR with mixed capacities — Compute SHR layout; rebuild md/LVM; mount upper FS.

7. Synology Btrfs checksum failures — btrfs restore from consistent trees/snapshots.

8. Synology Hyper Backup vault damage — Index chunk store by hash; rehydrate versions.

9. Drobo BeyondRAID DB corruption — Parse pack headers; infer map; export raw LUN; fix inner FS.

10. Drobo cache battery failure (torn stripes) — Heal at FS layer post-export using journals.

11. Drobo disk pack moved between chassis — Normalise identifiers; emulate stable map; extract LUN.

12. Thecus metadata scattered across sys partitions — Rebuild md by UUID; restore LVM; mount FS.

13. Asustor ADM update rewrote GPT — Recover prior GPT; correct offsets; assemble md/LVM.

14. TerraMaster TRAID ambiguity — Derive layout math; rebuild virtual map; mount FS.

15. ReadyNAS X-RAID reshape inconsistency — Select coherent generation; assemble and export.

16. TrueNAS encrypted dataset (keys misplaced) — Requires keys; if provided, unlock on clones; else plaintext artefact carving only.

17. VMs stored as sparse files — Stitch base+delta; mount guest FS and export.

18. Snapshot bloat → read-only pool — Copy from snapshots; thin post-migration.

19. Cloud sync re-uploaded encrypted payloads — Restore prior cloud versions; remap to local paths.

20. SMR drives in parity arrays — Sequential imaging per member; parity rebuild in software; recommend CMR replacements.

Why Reading Data Recovery

• 25 years across controllers, NAS vendors and file systems; thousands of successful enterprise and SME recoveries.

• Controller-aware, forensically sound workflow; originals never written to.

• Full-stack capability from mechanics (head-stacks/motors) to electronics (PCB/ROM) to logic (FS/VM/DB).

• Dedicated nas and raid data recovery service, raid 6 data recovery service, and broader raid and server data recovery services for complex environments.

Next step: Package each disk in an anti-static bag inside a padded envelope or small box with your contact details and case reference, then post or drop it in.
Reading Data Recovery — contact our RAID engineers today for a free diagnostic.