Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 VMFS File System Reconstruction (Part 4) In the last three installments we have taken an in depth look at the VMFS file system. As we have seen there are many different components that make up the file system … [Read more...]
VMFS File System Reconstruction (Part 3)
June 13, 2013 By
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 In the last two sections we covered the coarser portions of the VMFS file system. First we looked at what a volume consists of and the best way to find a volume on a storage device where the file system has been … [Read more...]
VMFS File System Reconstruction (Part 2)
May 24, 2013 By
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 In the first installment of our explanation of rebuilding the VMFS file system from a damaged volume we covered some of the attributes of the volume on disk data structure. In addition to that we reviewed some … [Read more...]
VMFS File System Reconstruction (Part 1)
May 15, 2013 By
Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 Recently DTI Data received a challenge in the form of a VMWare ESXi 5.1 server which contained 16 (sixteen) 2 (two) terabyte Seagate ST2000DM001 hard drives. These drives were configured as a RAID 10, 8 (eight) … [Read more...]
Unable to Rebuild a RAID 5 Array
April 16, 2013 By
RAID Configuration: 4 Seagate Barracuda Green 2 TB SATA hard drives (model ST2000DL003) configured as a RAID 5 connected to an on-board Intel RAID controller. Problem with RAID: Because of the nature of Green drives, specifically that they will … [Read more...]
RAID 5 Sybase Data File Diagnostic Software
February 24, 2012 By
Recently I received a set of drives that were originally in a RAID 5 (stripe set) configuration. These drives were old Seagate forty gigabyte Parallel ATA (PATA) drives. The client explained that they had rebooted the server and when it came up again … [Read more...]
Determining configuration for RAID Five or RAID Zero
February 18, 2011 By
Reading the title makes it sound like something that should be easy. I should be able to just pull out the drives in the order they are presented in the hardware, mark them as 0 through whatever and be done with it. However it has been my experience … [Read more...]
DTI Data’s Many Options For RAID Data Recovery
February 15, 2011 By
DTI Data has been in the RAID Data Recovery business for a long time. We focus on RAID 5 data recovery, which is still the prelevant system in storage devices such as DELL PowerEdge Servers. Many RAID systems such  RAID 50 is still built off of the … [Read more...]
Stale Drive Detection for Windows NTFS Raids
January 31, 2011 By
Greetings and Salutations! My name is Richard Correa and I am a Software Engineer and data recovery specialist for DTI Data. Over the years I have written many tools to help the technician resolve several of the problems they may encounter during … [Read more...]
Disaster Planning Overview Creation
January 26, 2011 By
Most businesses these days depend heavily on technology and automation. Continued operations of a business/organization depend on being aware of potential disasters before they strike. Having a strategic disaster recovery plan to minimize disruptions … [Read more...]
SAN and NAS the Difference from a User Perspective
January 12, 2011 By
So I was asked the other day by our SEO content writer what is the difference between SAN and NAS. Now, usually I pride myself in the ability to spout off random techno babble, in order to explain what would normally be a difficult concept easily … [Read more...]
Data Recovery and Disaster Recovery Explained
January 12, 2011 By
Every company that uses computers to carry out their business, needs to have a solid disaster recovery plan. One item often left out is data recovery! Data Recovery is one of those services that no one thinks they will ever need until it is too late. … [Read more...]
SAN Data Recovery NAS Repair
December 29, 2010 By
When it comes to computers and networks, NAS devices were mainly used by large businesses. Now that home users store huge amounts of data from music to videos, more and more people are turning to Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices to … [Read more...]
Disaster Planning – Qualitative and Quantitative Risk Analysis
December 21, 2010 By
Risk Assessment or security risk analysis is key to the security of any business or organization. It's crucial for making sure that controls are equal to the risks that the organization is exposed to. To figure out which security controls are … [Read more...]
First Response In Disaster Recovery
December 14, 2010 By
What Did the First Responders Really Do? A common occurrence that many consultants experience is a discrepancy between what first responders "claim" they did and what the analyst actually sees that happended upon examination. More often than … [Read more...]
How To Enable Remote Desktop Terminal Services Remotely
November 30, 2010 By
So, after delivering a new server to a client and getting it setup on the network, joining the domain and configuring the nightly backup, I decide to take off and finish the rest of  the tasks remotely. Not until I drive back to the office and … [Read more...]
Recovering from a RAID Controller Failure
December 18, 2009 By
There are many reasons why a RAID goes down. A technician will normally assume that one or more of the drives have failed. This is a common diagnosis as the diagnostic lights on each of the drives may be blinking, the lights may have gone amber, … [Read more...]
RAID 5 Stale drive detection
December 2, 2009 By
Over the course of a week I receive several calls regarding the recovery of a RAID 5 array. In the course of the initial interrogation of a client I ask several questions regarding the state of the array, what has been done to recover the array and … [Read more...]
Network Attached Storage NAS and Other Nightmares
November 24, 2009 By
Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices have been a boon for storage technology. What a great windfall for the industry. Grab yourself an Open Source operating system, stick it on a prom, get yourself an inexpensive motherboard, some hard drives … [Read more...]
Recovering a badly fragmented Outlook PST file after a few rounds with chkdsk The Final Installment
November 24, 2009 By
Welcome back! As before, we still have the problem where chkdsk was run on a RAID with a stale drive. We have had a brief explanation of how NTFS 5 works and how the data is stored on the volume. Lets take a much more detailed look as to how … [Read more...]