RAID 5 with three drives -- some 0 Byte Files in a specific dir -- RAID Bay says all drives Healthy

[nabnume]

Hello all! I am seeking guidance on how to troubleshoot this issue, determine root cause, and if possible, fix the issue.

I have a Raid+ HFR2-SU3S2 4-Drive Raid Bay -- with three 3TB drives inside. The hard-drive led indicator shows that all the drives are healty.

Recently, I noticed that 98% of the media files in the B:\Media\Shows directory are now 0 byte files. There are a few files which still work.

Using windows search of "size:0b", the issue seems primarily isolated to B:\Media\Shows

I've already ran a CHKDSK /F /R on the drive -- it seemed to locate and address some things, but, the files are still 0b.

I am seeking to understand what happened, how to troubleshoot it, and if there is a fix.

Cheers!

 

[FreeBooter]

I think you had a file system error which you have corrected with disk error checking. If you want you can recover those files with ShadowExplorer utility.

ShadowExplorer.com - About

 

[nabnume]

Aw man, good suggestion, but when I select my external raid bay from the dropdown -- nothing (no dates) appear in the 2nd combo box It seems only my C:\ has the "Protection" enabled for it -- so I'll enable it for my other drives now, knowing this is a thing that can happen in the future.


What if I removed 1/3 of the RAID drives, and inserted a clean HDD to see If it can rebuild from parity? Or no? Or is there any other next steps I can do?!

 

[FreeBooter]

RAID 5 provides redundancy, but, unless you have a separate backup service, there is only one copy of your data. If a person is making repairs or rebuilding the system, data will still be lost. A RAID rebuild only restores systems and data that currently exist. It won’t repair file systems or provide access to lost data, and it doesn’t fix corrupted partitions.

 

[Digerati]

RAID 5 provides redundancy, but, unless you have a separate backup service, there is only one copy of your data.

^^^THIS^^^

The problem with RAID arrays is they often give a false sense of security with the misconception that the RAID provides a level of backup should the "data" become lost, corrupt or deleted. That is not the purpose for have a RAID array. The purpose, depending on RAID type, is to provide better drive performance and/or drive redundancy should a "drive" fail. This means if you get hit by malware, the malware is quickly and very effectively distributed across the array. If a file is deleted or modified, the file is quickly deleted or modified everywhere. RAID is not, and never was an effective backup solution. If you don't have a current backup on a totally separate backup device, you may be out of luck.

I suspect if you swap in a clean drive, you will simply replicate all those 0 byte files.

You can try another data recovery program like Recuva from the makers of CCleaner. Wise Data Recovery is also popular. But I would not hold my breath - especially if you have been using these drives since the corruption occurred.

And for future reference, you never need to include /f when you use /r with chkdsk. If you enter chkdsk /? you will in the description for /r that it "implies" (includes) /f. So when you enter both /f and /r switches with chkdsk, the /f is ignored since those tasks are already being performed by the /r switch.