Situation
A three-disk server set was presented after the original configuration was no longer available. Initial software labels suggested a stripe component while the customer reported RAID 5.
Investigation
The recovery process compared beginning and ending sectors, parity behavior, filesystem continuity and file-level results across candidate layouts.
Validation
Large archives, images, spreadsheets and database backups were opened or extracted from the reconstructed volume. SQL backup restoration was also used as application-level evidence.
Lesson
Controller family, drive count and customer recollection are useful inputs, but a recovery configuration should be accepted only after structural and file-level validation.
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