Deleted GPT Partition's

[KNOOTS]

I have a server at home with a single SATA drive for the system drive. I then have a apprx. 3.5TB RAID 5 drive that was for ALL of my archived data. I was going to upgrade the server to server 2008. The Dell Server Assist install disk never asked me about the SATA drive which was set as the boot and primary drive for installation instructions and it removed my GPT partition on the RAID drive and replaced it with 2 small FAT32 or NTFS partitions (don't have the machine on right now because as soon as I saw what it did I shut it down until I could figure out what to do).

I own and have used ZAR in different scenarios but this one is a bit more then anything I have dealt with. Is this something that ZAR could help me to recover that last data? The Dell CD did not re-create the raid so the original RAID Striping is intact just the GPT partition was removed and replaced.

Did I mention I am a licensed customer already?

Thoughts? Help!!!!!

[Alexey V. Gubin]

If both of the following conditions apply

1. The RAID volume is still accessible as a single unit, not a set of separate disks.
2. There was only one partition on the entire RAID.

then a simple unformat should be OK. Select the RAID unit in a list of physical devices. Do not select any of the existing volumes, right click the volume list, pick "Define volume manually" and select "There was only one volume". Then scan that new volume.

There may be issues with the data from the newly created NTFS partition mixing with the data of the original volume, but I do not expect it to be significant.

[Alexey V. Gubin]

And, uh, you still need 3.5 TB free space to offload the data.

[KNOOTS]

Yes the 2 requirements were true. The Raid set had not changed and was completely intact so only the partitions changed. I was concerned because it went from a GPT to a MBR. But . . .

As you said it did find the original drive and data. About 70% of the data was in the original directory structure. Luckily the drives were not completely full. I am still restoring data but everything is working well.

Just an FYI. I contacted a drive recovery company that has recovered data on a physically damaged drive for us in the past. They wanted $500 to diagnose and 4,000 - 9,000 to recover the data. How much was ZAR again?

Thank you for your quick response. This application will be recommended to anyone I talk to with a similar problem. Thank you!!!

[Alexey V. Gubin]

Originally Posted by KNOOTS

I was concerned because it went from a GPT to a MBR.

Actually, the partitioning does not matter. It is the ability to specify search area with enough precision that matters. In case of a single volume the search area is obvious, and off we go.