• With the right contact for professional data recovery, downtime can be drastically reduced
• Server data recovery in a business environment – in safe hands with RecoveryLab

An unexpected server failure at a medium-sized industrial customer in the Wuppertal area recently led to acute data loss despite a multi-level backup strategy, which would have meant days of production IT downtime without an immediate response. The cause was a rare but serious configuration error in the backup system: although all backups were complete, they were technically unusable.

Thanks to a recommendation from a regional computer retailer to the data recovery specialists at RecoveryLab via an IT expert network, full access to the affected RAID system was restored within 48 hours.

Trigger: RAID 5 failure at a manufacturing company – backups fail in an emergency

The incident occurred at a long-standing customer of the specialist retailer, a company in the manufacturing industry. A NAS system with a RAID 5 array consisting of four hard drives was used to store production documents, plans and control-related production data. After a power failure caused by a network switch, the system could no longer be started correctly – two of the four hard drives showed inconsistent metadata when restarted and could no longer be integrated by the RAID controller.

The real escalation occurred during the recovery attempt: although daily backups were available, the backup software had not backed up the original files for months due to a configuration error, but only symbolic references (symlinks). The backups appeared to be complete, but contained no usable data.

RecoveryLab reconstructs RAID structure with virtual simulation

The IT specialist contacted RecoveryLab Wuppertal immediately with the message: ‘The customer needs the data by Monday – otherwise production will come to a standstill.’ In the data recovery lab, the defective hard drives were removed under laboratory conditions, read in write-protected mode and forensically analysed.

Based on the raw data, a virtual RAID array was simulated to reconstruct the original logical structure. The experts used specially developed tools for block consolidation to reassemble damaged RAID stripes and metadata synchronisation to restore project statuses and file system consistency.

Particular attention was paid to preserving directory structures and temporal integrity, as much of the data was involved in ongoing manufacturing processes. Within 48 hours, all critical data was transferred to new data carriers in a consistent form. The customer was able to put the system back into productive use without any loss of data.

‘Our job is not just to rescue data – we build trust through reliable cooperation with our partners,’ says Stefan Berger, spokesperson for RecoveryLab. ‘In critical cases, every hour counts – and a direct line between the IT specialist and the data lab can be crucial.’

Partnership instead of competition: RecoveryLab as an extension of specialist retailers

This case shows how crucial it is for specialist retailers to be able to call on a specialised data recovery partner in an emergency – without conflicting with their own business model. RecoveryLab does not act as a competitor, but as a technical partner for exceptional situations where standard solutions reach their limits. The collaboration is transparent, confidential and goal-oriented.

Call for cooperation for IT companies in North Rhine-Westphalia

RecoveryLab Wuppertal is currently expanding its network of regional IT partners and is specifically looking for system houses, IT service providers and specialist retailers (https://www.recoverylab-datenrettung.de/datenrettung-affiliate-partnerprogramm/) who want to offer their customers fast, transparent and technically savvy data recovery solutions in emergencies – without having to set up their own infrastructure. ‘System houses in North Rhine-Westphalia that want to secure their backup strategies or supplement their emergency plans are welcome to cooperate with us,’ says Berger.