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My very old Dell server will not boot up, I am pretty sure it's a motherboard issue. So, I removed 2 hard drives when the computer's power was off. I am assuming the drives were in a RAID configuration.

My intention was to get an adapter to recover the data, but then I figured out that I may not be able to recover the data since I may have broken the RAID array. I'm not sure what my next step should be. I am considering 2 options: 1) insert the drives back in the tower and try to boot the computer again to gather more information or 2) go ahead and connect each drive to another computer to try and recover the data. Does anyone have any advice?

Thank you so much for your help.

DesertTechGirl
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    What RAID level? – 84104 Oct 06 '15 at 23:43
  • Unfortunately, I have no idea the RAID level since this server was passed down to me and I never checked its specs before it crashed a few days ago. Is there a way for me to find this out by looking at the drive's exterior? I am a novice (obviously). – DesertTechGirl Oct 07 '15 at 15:54
  • I decided to hook up the drives to another computer with an adapter. The first one only showed folders, no files. I was scared. The second wouldn't get recognized by a few computers until I put it in one with an old OS, then it was recognized and I am now retrieving my files. In the end, everything worked out. Thank goodness and thank you for your response! – DesertTechGirl Oct 07 '15 at 17:58

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I believe if it was RAID-1, both drives should be the same, with normal partitions, filesystems and files. You should be able to stick one drive in another computer and access the data.

Of course it's possible that not all RAID controllers/software work the same way, but I have seen it work this way before. It couldn't hurt to take a peek.

Ryan Babchishin
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  • I decided to hook up the drives to another computer with an adapter. The first one only showed folders, no files. I was scared. The second wouldn't get recognized by a few computers until I put it in one with an old OS, then it was recognized and I am now retrieving my files. In the end, everything worked out. Thank goodness and thank you for your response! – DesertTechGirl Oct 07 '15 at 17:58