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

If your array has failed or won’t mount, our data recovery raid 5 and RAID-10 workflows restore access fast and safely. We stabilise each member disk, clone at hardware level, virtually re-assemble the array (order, rotation, stripe size, offsets, parity/mirror mapping), then repair volumes and file systems on read-only images. We handle NAS, rack servers and DAS — including specialist qnap raid 5 data recovery where QTS/QuTS metadata, mdadm and LVM must be reconstructed precisely.

How to send drives: place each disk in an anti-static bag, then a padded envelope or small box with your details/case ID. You can post or drop off. Free diagnostic on arrival.

What we actually do (engineering workflow)

1. Forensic intake & isolation — Photograph bay order/cabling; export controller/NAS config/NVRAM; block all writes; inventory encryption (BitLocker/LUKS/SED).

2. Stabilise & clone each member — PC-3000/Atola/DeepSpar imaging with current-limited power, timeouts, per-head zoning for HDDs; admin-command imaging for SATA/NVMe SSDs. Where required: PCB/ROM transfer, preamp/HSA or motor swaps; for SSD, FTL/L2P reconstruction (incl. chip-off + ECC/XOR).

3. Virtual array assembly — Infer order/rotation/stripe size/offsets and parity (RAID-5) or mirror-stripe mapping (RAID-10); correct 512e/4Kn; emulate controller metadata (mdadm/Adaptec/PERC/SmartArray).

4. Logical recovery — Rebuild containers (mdadm/LVM/Storage Spaces/CoreStorage/APFS, ZFS/Btrfs) and filesystems (NTFS, XFS, EXT, ReFS, HFS+, APFS, exFAT); repair iSCSI LUNs/VMFS/VHDX/VMDK; app-aware steps for Exchange/SQL.

5. Verification & hand-off — SHA-256 manifests, sample-open tests (VMs/DBs first), secure delivery.

Reality check: RAID-10 can survive one disk per mirror, but not a mirror pair failure; RAID-5 can tolerate a single failed member. Our job is to maximise readable surface and choose the correct generation before any logical repair. This is critical for qnap raid 5 data recovery where thin LUNs and file-backed LUNs add complexity.

Top NAS brands seen in the UK (with 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, AS6704T, 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 — DNS-327L, DNS-340L

14. Zyxel — NAS326, NAS542

15. QSAN — XCubeNAS XN3002T/XN5004T

RAID-5/10-capable rack/server platforms we routinely recover

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. Promise VTrak/Vess — E5000/R2000

12. Nexsan — UNITY/E-Series

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

14. Dell PowerVault NX — NX3240/NX440

15. HPE StoreEasy (rack) — 1660/1860

75 RAID-5 & RAID-10 faults we recover — and how we fix them (concise, technical)

Format: Problem summary — How we resolve it (technical)

Member / media failures (HDD & SSD)

1. RAID-5: single failed disk (degraded) — Clone weak member; assemble virtual set; recompute parity to heal single-member read errors; export from the reconstructed volume.

2. RAID-5: failure during rebuild — Freeze writes; image all members; roll back to the pre-rebuild generation via event counters; heal torn stripes using FS journals.

3. RAID-10: one mirror bad, partner weak — Per-head imaging both; produce a best-of mirror; then re-stripe virtually to reconstruct RAID-10.

4. Head crash on a parity member — Donor HSA swap → low-stress imaging; parity rebuilds unreadable LBAs; mark unfillable stripes for partial-file handling.

5. Motor/spindle seizure — Platter migration to matched chassis; servo alignment; image; use parity/mirror to complete stripes.

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

7. Service-area firmware module damage — Patch SA modules/ adaptives; image; validate with parity/mirror checks.

8. SMR member stalls — Disable relocation on the imager; sequential passes; reconstruct set from stable images.

9. SSD retention loss / read-disturb — Temperature-assisted multi-read + majority vote; if FTL lost, chip-off + ECC/XOR + L2P rebuild; reinject image.

10. NVMe namespace corruption — Admin-command imaging; or raw NAND → L2P; rebuild namespace image.

11. Media contamination (dust/liquid) — Mechanical remediation, platter cleaning; conservative imaging; parity/mirror completes.

12. Preamp failure (silent HDD) — HSA swap; clone; rely on parity/mirror to arbitrate.

13. Intermittent timeouts on multiple members — Interleaved short-block passes to capture complementary sectors; consolidate; assemble.

14. Bad sector avalanche during reshape/expand — Clone first; compute pre- and post-reshape layouts; choose coherent generation; export.

15. Shingled disk after power loss — Outer→inner passes; accept CMR-like zones; parity rebuild over gaps.

16. Surface flaking in bands — Head-map; carve intact bands; parity/mirror for missing stripes.

Electronics / PCB / power

17. PCB burn / TVS short — Donor PCB with ROM transfer; current-limited spin-up; image; parity validates content.

18. Surge damaged multiple PCBs — Repair rails; ROM moves; clone; pick generation by parity and FS logs.

19. Repeated spin-up/down — Windowed imaging; consolidate; parity heals partials.

20. USB/SATA bridge failure in DAS/NAS — Bypass bridge; native HBA cloning; correct 512e/4Kn exposure.

21. Backplane power fault/CRC storms — Rehost to known-good HBA/backplane; re-image with CRC counters; discard suspect reads.

22. NVMe brown-out corrupted mapping — Controller table recovery or raw NAND + L2P rebuild; rejoin set.

Controller / HBA / metadata

23. Controller dead (PERC/SmartArray/Adaptec) — Clone all members; rebuild from on-disk metadata (mdadm style); emulate parity in software.

24. Foreign import overwrote config — Carve earlier superblocks; select highest coherent event generation; ignore foreign set.

25. Stripe size changed by firmware — Parity-consistency sweep (16–1024 KiB) to identify true interleave; assemble with best score.

26. Write-back cache failure (write-hole) — Detect torn stripes; reconcile via FS logs/snapshots; parity math for residual gaps.

27. mdadm bitmap stale — Ignore bitmap; assemble by event counters/parity validity.

28. Offset shift after enclosure swap — Find true data starts via superblock signatures; correct offsets in mapping.

29. Sector size mismatch (512e vs 4Kn) — Normalise in virtual layer; realign GPT/partitions; proceed.

30. Nested sets (RAID-50/10+0) inconsistent — Heal inner RAID-5/10 segments first, then outer RAID-0 concatenation.

31. RAID-10 mirror bitmaps diverged — Select newest halves per bitmap/journal; re-stripe virtually.

32. Controller migration between vendors — Translate metadata; software assemble; read-only mount for extraction.

33. Auto-rebuild to smaller replacement disk — Cap geometry to smallest LBA; mask OOB extents; continue logical repair.

34. Hot-spare add triggered wrong generation — Choose generation by parity and FS transaction IDs; assemble that epoch.

Human / operational

35. Wrong disk pulled from degraded RAID-5 — Parity chronology + event counters reveal the correct set; assemble virtually.

36. Accidental quick-init/re-initialisation — Recover prior headers from slack/tail; ignore new metadata; assemble previous geometry.

37. Members shuffled in bays — Order/rotation inference by parity correlation/entropy; lock valid permutation.

38. Expand with mismatched capacities — Normalise geometry; mask OOB; rebuild logically.

39. DIY rebuild propagated read errors — Contain writes; roll back to pre-rebuild generation; heal via parity + FS journals.

40. In-place FS repair (chkdsk/fsck) worsened state — Discard post-repair writes; mount pre-repair snapshot from images; rebuild indexes from logs.

41. Cloned to smaller disk (truncated) — *Re-export on full geometry; repair tails (GPT/FS).

42. NAS OS reinstall created new array over old — Find prior md/LVM/ZFS by UUID/event; assemble old set; mount RO.

43. Snapshot deletion during failure — Prefer generation with valid logs/higher transaction IDs; export that state.

44. Encryption keys mishandled — Unlock BitLocker/LUKS on images; without keys, plaintext carving only (limitations documented).

Parity / geometry anomalies (RAID-5) & mirror/stripe (RAID-10)

45. Unknown stripe size — Automated sweep with parity scoring; pick highest-valid layout.

46. Unknown rotation (left/right, sync/async) — Cross-member correlation; select rotation maximising parity validity.

47. mdadm reshape half-completed — Compute old/new layouts from superblock events; select coherent view; ignore transient state.

48. Write-hole after power loss — Detect torn stripes; reconcile with FS journals; parity fills remainder.

49. Parity valid but FS dirty — Treat as single virtual disk; FS-level repair on image; export.

50. RAID-10 divergent mirrors — Choose per-stripe the newest intact copy using logs/bitmaps; re-striped export.

51. Endianness/byte-order shift after platform move — Byte-swap virtual device; re-parse metadata; assemble.

52. Tail metadata truncated by USB dock — Re-image via HBA; recover backup GPT/superblocks; continue.

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

54. SMR reshaping altered apparent interleave — Stabilise imaging first; recompute layout by content analysis; assemble that epoch.

Filesystems & volume managers on top of RAID-5/10

55. NTFS MFT/$Bitmap divergence — Replay $LogFile; rebuild indexes; graft orphans; verify via open-tests.

56. XFS log/AG B-tree damage — Log replay; rebuild AG trees from secondary superblocks; export.

57. EXT4 dirty journal / orphan lists — Journal replay on images; carve residual inodes; rebuild trees.

58. ReFS epoch mismatch — Mount consistent epoch/snapshot; copy out; avoid rw mounts.

59. APFS container/OMAP inconsistencies — Rebuild container superblocks/OMAP; mount the most coherent VG; extract.

60. HFS+ catalog/extent corruption — B-tree rebuild from alternates; verify by sample open/CRC.

61. LVM PV/VG metadata loss — Carve PV headers; reconstruct VG; activate LVs RO; fix inner FS.

62. Windows Storage Spaces (parity/mirror) degraded — Parse NB metadata; rebuild slab maps to a single virtual disk; mount NTFS.

63. ZFS datasets on RAID-10 LUN — Import pool on images; scrub; copy datasets/zvols; mount inner FS.

64. Btrfs single or RAID-1 profile atop RAID-10 — btrfs restore from consistent trees/snapshots; checksum-verified extraction.

NAS-specific, including QNAP RAID-5 (QTS/QuTS) and Synology

65. QNAP (mdadm+LVM+Ext4) superblock mismatch — Select coherent md events; rebuild LVM; mount Ext4; extract shares — classic qnap raid 5 data recovery.

66. QNAP thin iSCSI LUN corruption — Carve LUN file; loop-mount; repair inner FS/VMFS; export VMs/files.

67. QNAP QuTS hero (ZFS) pool fault (RAID-10 vdevs) — Import RO on clones; recover datasets/zvols.

68. Synology SHR (RAID-5 equivalent) conflicts — Assemble md sets by UUID/event; rebuild LVM; mount Btrfs/Ext4; export.

69. Synology Btrfs checksum failures — Prefer extents with valid checksums; use btrfs restore; cross-check snapshots.

70. SSD cache poisoning reads (QNAP/Synology) — Bypass cache; recover from HDD tier only; rebuild cache on new hardware.

71. NAS expansion aborted mid-way — Revert to pre-expansion generation by event counters; assemble and extract.

Virtualisation & applications on RAID-5/10

72. VMFS datastore header damage — Rebuild VMFS metadata; enumerate VMDK chains; mount guest FS and export.

73. Hyper-V AVHDX chain broken — Repair parent/child; merge snapshots; mount VHDX; validate apps.

74. KVM qcow2 overlay missing — Recreate overlay mapping with base; mount guest FS; salvage.

75. Exchange/SQL after crash on parity/mirror — Replay ESE/SQL logs on cloned image; export mailboxes/tables; integrity-check.

Why Reading Data Recovery

• 25+ years delivering complex data recovery raid 5 and RAID-10 outcomes for home users, SMEs, enterprises and public sector.

• Full-stack capability: mechanical (head-stacks/motors), electronics (PCB/ROM/firmware), logical (LVM/FS/VM/DB).

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

• Extensive donor inventory and advanced imagers to maximise readable surface and parity/mirror reconstruction — including specialist qnap raid 5 data recovery cases.

Next step: Package each disk (anti-static + padded envelope or small box) with your details and post or drop-off to us.
Reading Data Recovery — contact our RAID engineers today for a free diagnostic.