See "Software RAID" in Chapter 13 to determine whether the RAID is software- or hardware-based.

Do You Need to Read This Chapter?

First determine if the RAID mechanism has failed. Data can be lost but the RAID has not failed, such as in the following cases:

• Files are lost by virus attacks or accidental deletion.
• The RAID volume is reformatted but not reconfigured.

In such cases you can follow procedures for ordinary (i.e. non-RAID) drives discussed throughout this manual.

The procedures in this chapter are for a failed software RAID, where the RAID volume is no longer accessible in Windows, such as in the following cases:

• One or more disks have physically failed.
• The RAID volume has been deleted or somehow disappeared.
• The RAID volume has been redefined in Windows Disk Manager.

Making this distinction is important to avoid wasting time and money following RAID recovery procedures when the RAID has not failed.

Using Our Services

Please see "Chapter 20: RAID Recovery Services."