When the Volume Survives but the Data Disappears

Sometimes the rebuild finishes halfway, the volume remounts, and everything looks fine — until you open a folder.
Empty.
The array came back online, but the file system didn’t.
This halfway state is dangerous — one false move, and usable parity becomes overwritten noise.

What You See

  • Controller shows Virtual Disk Online but capacity mis-reported.
  • File system mounts blank or reads as RAW.
  • Logs record Rebuild Aborted or Parity Check Incomplete.
  • SMART errors on replacement drive show reallocation events.
  • OS may prompt to “initialize new disk.”

Why It Happens

  • Interrupted rebuild left partial parity writes.
  • File-system metadata blocks overwritten by incomplete rebuild.
  • Controller re-synced offsets without verifying FS headers.
  • Background initialization resumed after power loss.
  • Stale cache flushed after incorrect drive re-add.

What NOT To Do

  • Do not mount the volume read-write.
  • Do not run CHKDSK/fsck to recover files.
  • Do not delete and recreate partitions.
  • Do not resume rebuild without verifying sector alignment.
  • Do not apply firmware updates mid-triage.

What You CAN Do

  • Clone all members to preserve current state.
  • Map parity stripe layout to determine offset damage.
  • Extract file system metadata from remaining good members.
  • Validate sector 0 through 4096 for boot record persistence.
  • Use binary recovery to restore MFT or inode structure offline.

Diagnostic Overview

  • Array Type: RAID 6 — Dual Parity Set
  • Controller State: Rebuild Interrupted / Volume Online but Empty
  • Likely Cause: Partial Parity Writes or File-System Metadata Loss
  • Do NOT: Mount or Write to the Volume Before Analysis
  • Recommended Action: Clone All Drives, Rebuild Parity Offline, Recover Metadata via ADR Imaging Suite