Recovering RAID Array after "No volume Found" error

 The use of programs such as ReClaiMe , UFS explorer or even commercial recovery companies never guarantees 100% data recovery.  The real issue is  are you going to  effectly attempt recovery DIY by use of commercial programs or send your discs to a Commercial recovery Company.  These companies do not charge on the percentage of data recovered but on the size of the  "volume" regardless of how much data is recovered.  They usually do a nominal charge I have been quoted £250 to have a look to assess the viability and then you pay the full charge regardless of how much data they recover. 8TB  was £1,200.00.  You pays your money and you takes your choice.  It is not a question of overstatement it is simply a case of if you have no external backup how much effort/money are you going to expend to get your important data or part of your data back.

Only the user can evaluate how much they believe the data is worth.

I aam simply passing on my experience of  a number of programs that I have tried out.  I can only report that  a particlar progarm worked on  volumes that I have had issues with and I never stated that I  got 100% back.  In fact  in 4 different instances where I attempted data recovery

in one case using Linux I recovered 100%.  This was a X-Raid volume but was effectively RAID 5 as I had built the raid with all the same size discs at the initial stage.

With the windows program that I  described,  on two different BTRFS volumes I recovered about 99% and on an ext volume I recovered  99.9%. I was vey impressed as the program was able to see the "proprietory" XRAID format.  I could not recover using linux as it would not see the volume XRAID but was not one "contiguous volume" ie different size discs  and I tried all the various commands .Linux had issues with losk Chunk trees.   PhotoRec was able to see the data but  only pulled off sections not full files .  The commercial company I contacted would not even touch BTRFS as they said it was "experimental" and yet they advertised data recovery for NV Nas's they could cope with ext3/4

there is a webpage which secribes data recovery of a synology SHR RAID 5 volume using the same program that i described in my initial post.    In the concluson of this detailed  description They recover 99% of data.  They also berate the use of SHR/XRAID which make it more difficult for owners to recover their data as diue to the proprietory nature of these  "use of spare" space formats.  Whilst we all appreciate this for expansion it does add another layer of complexity to any data recovery.

I have had a long "discussion" with MGDM via personal messges as to this very issue.

Since the update to 6.4.1 I have  "lost" 5 volumes of 8Tb plus  was  actually ready to scrap  my large investment in Netgear units as  they are close to being unfit for purpose.  I have spent a lot of time looking for recovery solutions that I can have in my toolkit and that are cost effective to protect my data as well as having  a backup system for the most "important" data.  To that end I have a linux box and have to "learn" this  in a basic way tas well as  relying on friends who  are a lot more Linux savvy than me and  some basic windows based recovery programs.

The real question is why do I need to equip myself to such an extent to protect my data.  And yes RAID is not backup .!!! I read this in my Linux for dummies book as well.

I am not promoting any programs just quoting my on personal journey in data recovery.

I thought the initial poster was asking for help on how to proceed They can try out "solutions" that are  posted in reply  if they wish.  I cannot guarantee that what worked for me in the specific cases I  had will work for anyone else or even if it will work for me again  if my volume goes down again  But I note that this forum actually does not have any advice for users that they can draw upon and everything seems to be on  "a PM personal" basis. And If we are lucky we get a " I am back in business" post.  But no actual help/decription on how this may benefit someone else.   Surely there should be some actual stickied help for users that wish to "investigate data recovery options for themsleves usualy when they hit they  "I have nothing to lose phase."

A long post  because I am annoyed about the simple statement  "should recover the data" is perhaps an overstatement.  It might not recover all of it.

I never stated that it would recover 100% just that it may recover your data if it could actualy "mount" the volume" using whatever method the program uses.  The UFS website for example does not guarantee 100% recovery just that it can recover data.

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