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Storage Spaces data recovery
Depending on the situation, data recovery from virtual disks (spaces) of Storage Spaces implies one of the following:
- Just data recovery from the space using ReclaiMe File Recovery.
- Recovery of Storage Spaces configuration using ReclaiMe Storage Spaces Recovery first and only then recovery of data from the reconstructed spaces.
There are certain indications described below helping you detect which recovery case you deal with.
Storage Spaces doesn't work
If Storage Spaces doesn't work (inaccessible spaces, unrecognized configuration, or some other Storage Spaces error),
this definitely means that you need to recover Storage Spaces configuration first. Then proceed with data recovery
from the reconstructed spaces.
Storage Spaces operates normally
In this case it is impossible to tell in advance what recovery scenario you should follow.
There are some indications based on which you can choose the appropriate recovery option:
- RAW file system on a space - stick to file recovery, just select the space in the "Logical drives" section
of ReclaiMe File Recovery software. The detailed instruction is given at the
RAW file system recovery page.
- If you formatted a thinly provisioned space and now want to unformat it, you need to
recover Storage Spaces configuration first.
As you can see from the diagram below, once you format a space,
slabs containing file contents are not visible inside Storage Spaces any longer .
- If you formatted a fixed space (available only starting with Windows Server 2012) and now want to unformat it,
you need regular unformat.
- If you deleted a large amount of data, say more than 256 MB in just one big file or in a lot of small files
from a thinly provisioned space, first you need Storage Spaces recovery.
As you can see from the diagram below, only part1 of the Large file can be recovered
and only because Slab 2 happened to contain data of some other file (File 3) as well.
To find remaining parts of the file it is needed to bring Slab 3 and Slab 4 back to the space which is a task for Storage Spaces recovery.
- If you deleted a small file (less than 256 MB) from a thinly provisioned space, regular undelete is just enough.
- Deleted data from a fixed space can be recovered by regular undelete.
If you deleted a space or an entire pool from Storage Spaces, you definitely need a
full-scale Storage Spaces recovery.
If you still cannot choose the recovery scenario, you should first try to make a regular data recovery,
if only because it is fast. However, keep in mind that if you launch typical data recovery software like ReclaiMe, ZAR,
or R-Studio and see a folder tree, file names, and file sizes but do not see file contents,
this means that a map of slabs is lost irreversibly. In this case you need to recover Storage Spaces configuration first.
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