Recreated RAID 6 — But Files Are Missing or Corrupt

When a Fresh Start Erases What Was Left

The array wouldn’t rebuild, so you recreated it — same drives, same order, same size.
It mounted — success for a moment — until you opened the first folder and found nothing but broken names and unreadable files.
The controller did what it was designed to do: start over.
The problem is, starting over wrote across what was still there.

What You See

New array appears healthy and mounts normally.
Files missing, corrupt, or unreadable.
SMART reports show low write counts despite recent activity.
Logs show New VD Created with same member set.
File system reports wrong volume ID or label.

Why It Happens

Controller overwrote metadata on member disks during recreation.
Stripe alignment no longer matches original parity map.
Partial initialization destroyed unused regions of valid data.
File system headers were re-created with empty allocations.
Background verify pass wrote zero blocks to previous data areas.

What NOT To Do

Do not write new data to the array under any circumstance.
Do not attempt file system repairs or mount for use.
Do not import old backups into the same set.
Do not swap controllers to force recognition.
Do not continue initialization once corruption is observed.

What You CAN Do

Stop writes immediately and clone all disks.
Capture controller config before power-down for stripe reference.
Analyze binary sectors for previous superblock or MFT headers.
Reconstruct old layout using ADR parity tools to extract pre-rebuild data.
Engage ADR engineer for metadata rollback or virtual RAID recreation.

Diagnostic Overview

Array Type: RAID 6 — Recreated Set
Controller State: Volume Mounted / Files Corrupt or Missing
Likely Cause: Overwritten Parity Map and Lost Stripe Alignment
Do NOT: Write to Volume or Run Repairs Before Imaging
Recommended Action: Clone All Members, Recover Old Metadata, Rebuild Using Binary Parity Analysis