CHKDSK deleted 20 GB of data

[cdov]

I've had a series of problems this past week that's been driving me crazy. TLDR version: I lost about 20 GB of data after running CHKDSK on my 2x 4TB RAID 1 array, and I don't know how to get it back.

I have a desktop computer running Windows 7 x64. About a week ago, my computer got stuck in a Startup Repair loop, making me unable to use my computer at all. I tried every single restore point to no avail. There was a bunch of data on the disk that I didn't have backed up, so I decided to buy a new hard drive, install a clean copy of Windows on it, and get as much data off the old drive as I could. Which seemed to work okay, except...

I also had 2x 4 TB data drives with important data that I had set up in a RAID 1 mirrored configuration using Windows Disk Management. I know next to nothing about configuring RAID setups. I had assumed my data was safe, and that a clean installation of Windows would pick up the old RAID configuration. In Disk Management, I right-clicked to 'Import Foreign Disk.' I'm not sure if this is where it went wrong, but I restarted the computer before the re-sync completed in order to install some Windows Updates. Upon rebooting, the computer automatically started running CHKDSK, and started reporting many 'Deleting Orphan File Record Segment' messages. CHKDSK had been running for about 30 min before I returned to my computer.

I started panicking, and shut down the computer in fear that it was deleting my data. I rebooted, this time opting to skip the CHKDSK. However, when trying to access the folders on the drive, I just received 'file or directory is corrupted and unreadable' errors. Based on suggestions from Googling around, I decided to run another CHKDSK, although I did it from the Windows GUI, and checked the box 'Automatically fix file system errors.' It got stuck on one file a few hours in. I rebooted the system and let the automatic CHKDSK run, which completed without any more of the 'Deleting orphan file record segment' messages.

However, after completing the CHKDSK operation, I noticed that the drive was reporting about 20 GB less data, and a bunch of important files and folders were missing.

Afterwards, the Disk Management re-sync completed, but it's reporting a 'Failed Redundancy.' There is a little memo bubble on the second disk saying 'The disk is offline because it has a signature collision with another disk that is online.'

I've been pulling hairs and spending hours on this. What can I do to get my data back??

Thanks in advance!

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello and welcome cdov mate I like you do not know much at all about that sort of set up and indeed have never used one. One thing I can suggest if you are sure the data has gone is to run a recovery software ie Recuva https://www.piriform.com/recuva first and see if it can get back soem of your gear.

Justa by the by there are more see this Free Windows Desktop Software Security List - Data Rescue | Gizmo's Freeware

 

[cdov]

Thanks for your reply.

I ran Recuva and went through the previews (without restoring the files yet), and it looks like there are still a lot of files missing. Also, the files don't seem to retain their file names or file structures, so it would take forever to organize them. Are there other means of recovering the files? (or other ways to run Recuva so that it picks up more files? - I did a Deep Scan)

Just to be clear on how I should proceed at this point, should I do something like this?
(1) Buy two large hard drives, and -->
(2) First back up current hard drive onto one of the drives
(3) Run Recuva and back up files to the other drive
(4) Reformat old Raid 1 array that failed, and maybe use a hardware raid instead of software raid?

In the future, would it be better to invest in getting a NAS device or something?

Thank you!

 

[cdov]

P.S. I did find a found.000 folder on the drive, but it's 0 bytes and doesn't contain any files