1)
One of the worst weeks in my life.
Small mom/pop business.
Wednesday @ 7 pm
Server with all our data goes down because of a bad UPS and power outage. Also, our original IT guy had installed my drive in RAID0 configuration x 4 drives. Backups... Never tested. Last good one was a serendipity VHD construction test on June 13, 2012. I always thought that it was in RAID5 as requested.
I spend all night reconstructing a temporary server but I get more and more panicky as I look at my backups and I can't pull any data out.
Thursday... Huge panic; have to admit that I have no good backup past June 13, 2012. Called 3 IT companies for their opinion. No one can help out. 9am => call and a wonderful data recovery sales guy (I live in a city with one of the world's biggest) agrees to take a look at my drives same day.
I'm fretting all day; can't sleep. Panicky/anxiety symptoms. Spend the rest of the day building a new server from scratch. Get my Software vendor on the line and they agree to line up a reinstall the next day.
Have to work Friday. Still having streaks of panic. Get my dad to pick up and run the recovered data to me at the office.
HOME RUN. Data recovered.
2)
Reinstall software and from google reviews decide to buy IFW and image the drive. BEST INVESTMENT IN MY LIFE. I now have configured a 2 drive RAID 1 with no hotswap. Decide to break RAID to add a hot swap in....
NOT REALIZING THAT THE DELL SAS5 CONTROLLER I HAVE DOESN"T SUPPORT HOT SWAPS. When I try to reconstruct/retie the RAID back into a RAID 1.... Won't boot.
Now, it may have worked if I had synchronized it but it wasn't booting anywere. It's now Saturday 7 am and I've only gotten a handful of hours of sleep. LUCKILY, I used IFL to image my drive before breaking RAID.
Reboot with IFL to restore. PANIC. It doesn't want to reinstall in the RAID. Google like crazy, apparently having a USB drive plugged in can do this.
Pull the USB Drive. PRAY TO THE GODS and reboot IFL. Successful restore after 20 min.
9:30 am. I've had 6 hours of sleep in the last 3 days. but THANKS to IFL; I don't have to do any reinstall and my server is online today.
4 working days lost.
Going to hire an IT company to review my backup plan/strategy.