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We have a windows server 2008 r2 installed dedicated server. Our provider moved our server to their new data center location recently. After this process, we cannot able to open our server.

They said "disk is failed". Disk was not showing in bios nor windows. They install new clean install on different hdd and connect failed drive as second hdd.

When i opened disk management, i see disk 1 but i cant do anything on it.

Is there any software level recovery option we can apply? If there isn't any, how we can restore our data in any way.

Thanks in advance.

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arunes
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  • Are you able to right click and choose initialize? It's not a healthy disk and you may well be out of luck. Did you not have RAID and backups? – Dan Jun 13 '13 at 06:13
  • Hi Dan, unfortunately we do not have backups :(, i tried to initialize but i receive this error `The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error initialize disk` – arunes Jun 13 '13 at 06:15
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    Well, you get what you deserve. Having no backups before a server move (which means physical stress to the disc) - you had to REALLY work for making this happen, and it happened. Learn from it, or choose an alternative career, please. Learning is better. Backups are not mirrors and backups MAKE SENSE. – TomTom Jun 13 '13 at 08:08
  • TomTom you dont know what kind a situation we are in. Its easy to judge. I'm aware backups is important of course. Whats done its done. If you have any opinion to help, i'm very please to listen. otherwise save your useless judges yourself, please. – arunes Jun 13 '13 at 10:51
  • Well, have fun with useless. You have a physical failure. Dead. Nothing to be done. You should have had a backup OR AT LEAST A MIRROR (RAID 1). You did not - have fun. Not a lot we can do. Been there, done that, never again. – TomTom Jun 13 '13 at 13:39
  • it's possible the 'freezer trick' would work in this situation, but unlikely. – Chris S Jun 13 '13 at 14:44

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You should not have too high hopes in data recovery. With most data loss cases, not all of the data can be recovered. Especially so if you are limited in your actions. A number of good and well-documented open source data recovery tools exist with Linux live DVDs, a number of commercial solutions are available for Windows.

If the disk's hardware is really defective and data cannot be either read or written at all using the SAS or SATA commands, software will not help you any further.

In this case, you would need to employ a data recovery service which has the capacities to open up the disk, remove the platters and read the data out in a different set of mechanics / electronics. Note that while many of them are offering a "free" or low-cost initial analysis, the recovery itself can be quite costly - you should be calculating $ 3,000 upwards, depending on the failure mode and the amount of data to be recovered.

If you are interested in the mechanics and want to try yourself (note though that you can irreversibly damage data if it goes wrong), take a look at this presentation from Scott Moulton:

youtube video

the-wabbit
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  • Thanks for sharing this presentation. But i don't think we can handle physical recovery by ourselfs. We will send it to professionals. Actually i think making physical damage on disk while moving server to another location is server provider's fault. But they dont want to take responsibility for it. I dont know what will happened next. So, we will see. – arunes Jun 13 '13 at 10:59
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    @arunes even if it is their fault, the liability in most cases will be limited to the cost of the hardware replacement plus a typical restore-from-backup operation, probably even excluding incidental damages caused by the downtime itself. Be aware though that disks indeed *do* fail upon poweroff / poweron often enough and making your case / proving that it has failed due to physical impact would likely be impossible to prove. – the-wabbit Jun 13 '13 at 13:27
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    Exactly. Discs DO fail - being prepared is "professional behavior baseline". Not being prepared means you have no claim to start with. It is not the hosters fault, it is a failed disc and you failed to prepare for that. There are backups, RAID scenarios, all for a reason - DISCS DO FAIL. Just sent 2 defective backs for replacement last week. – TomTom Jun 13 '13 at 13:41