Recover files from RAID1 drive

[peter.vullings]

Recover files from RAID1 drive [Solved!]

Hi all. Our FreeNAS server just had a hardware failure so I am unable to use the server. However, the drives are fine (two 1TB USB2.0 external drives in RAID 1 formation).

When I plug the drive in to a machine (Windows Vista) they are recognised in the Drive Manager but do not appear under My Computer and I am unable to open the drive to browse the files - theoretically because the drives are not recognised to be in a file format supported by Vista because of the RAID?

How can I get the files off one of these drives? (presumable, because of RAID 1, they are both the same).

p.s. I realise I could install FreeNAS on another machine and go that way - but if at all possible I would like to simply use windows to copy the files off the drive.

Any ideas welcome!

Best Regards,
Peter

 

[globus999]

Hi all. Our FreeNAS server just had a hardware failure so I am unable to use the server. However, the drives are fine (two 1TB USB2.0 external drives in RAID 1 formation).

When I plug the drive in to a machine (Windows Vista) they are recognised in the Drive Manager but do not appear under My Computer and I am unable to open the drive to browse the files - theoretically because the drives are not recognised to be in a file format supported by Vista because of the RAID?

How can I get the files off one of these drives? (presumable, because of RAID 1, they are both the same).

p.s. I realise I could install FreeNAS on another machine and go that way - but if at all possible I would like to simply use windows to copy the files off the drive.

Any ideas welcome!

Best Regards,
Peter

If you used ZFS for the raid1, then you are out of luck. There are no Windows drivers for ZFS, so, you won't be able to access the files.
If you used UFS, then maybe. There are Windows drivers such as http://ufs2tools.sourceforge.net/ or UFS Explorer (paid) and similar tools. Just google USF and Windows to see what meets your requirements.

 

[peter.vullings]

Thanks Globus999,

What I ended up doing was using the demo version of R-Studio to make sure I could see the files, and then I purchased it once I knew it could do the job. R-Studio managed to recover all files from the RAID1 drive to my new NAS beautifully and I have all my files again! Well worth the $80 USD.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[globus999]

NP. Nice app, btw, didn't know it. Good info.