Dell Poweredge 2850 RAID 5 OS damaged - Can I recover or transfer the información in any way?

Question

I have a Dell Poweredge 2850 with RAID 5 and Windows 2000. The OS died and I'm receiving the blue screen when I try to boot. I think the OS has some files damaged but the disks are OK so the data should be there. This is a database server (SQL Server). I have backup but I would lose some information if I reinstall from it. Is it possible to access the disk array in some way to extract the information from it maybe to an USB disk? I was thinking something like a rescue disk of some kind. May be a Linux one. What do you think?

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Linux Rescue CD would work if it can see the RAID. Its a hardware RAID, right? Basically what you need is a live rescue CD with NTFS tools. I believe KNOPPIX -

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/knoppix51-en.html should do the job.

Boot, try and mount the filesystem and see if you can copy the files. If you use external media (like a USB hard disk) avoid using FAT filesystem as it supports only up to 4GB files.