ZAR 9.2 build 2 not responding after 3 days

After about twenty years, I felt ZAR can no longer be updated to match the modern requirements, and I decided to retire it.

ZAR is replaced by Klennet Recovery, my new general-purpose DIY data recovery software.

If you are looking specifically for recovery of image files (like JPEG, CR2, and NEF), take a look at Klennet Carver, a separate video and photo recovery software.

I'm trying to recover a 5,5TB RAID with three drives since a few days now. Suddenly the scan stopped at 7 % and ZAR is not responding at the moment.

My setup is:

• Dell Laptop with Windows 8.1
• A 4-bay drive external enclosure (Icycube) with USB 2.0 connection to laptop
• 3 drives are in the external enclosure and chosen in ZAR to recover files from the RAID

I'm using three of the four drives, because one has been shown as defective in the external RAID system. So I went and pulled the drive off of that system and put the three drives I think that they are three working into the external USB/eSATA enclosure.

One of the 3 drive's LEDs from the enclosure went off and ZAR is not responding. The LED of the other two drives are lit, but not flickering as there is no access going on anymore, since one day. Transfer rate shows as 0,0 MB/s. I was checking once in a while.

What do you need to know? What can I do differently to recover the files from the RAID?

Bad sectors and USB enclosures do not mix well.

The drive for which USB enclosure light went off is defective to some unknown extent. You need to connect this drive directly to a SATA port of a desktop PC and make an image of it. Then proceed with RAID recovery.

As for disk image files, I'd suggest Intel ICH chipset for creating the image. Identify the faulty drive and image this drive alone. All other you can use with USB. Identification can be done either by LEDs on the enclosure (the one for which LED went off is faulty), and also by SMART data - the drive with worst SMART data is the problem.

You can image the drive using ZAR, right click the drive in the list, pick "Create image". You should store 2TB image file on any 3TB NTFS-formatted drive, maybe an external drive.