Taking work now — the first look is freeWhole sets posted in from anywhere in the UK, or handed in at ten drop-off pointsQuicker still, give us a ring:0800 6890668
RARRAID Array Data Recovery 0800 6890668 Price my job
RAR / Whatever it is saying now / Storage Spaces: no redundancy, detached

No redundancy · Detached · Incomplete · Unhealthy · Warning · KB4568129 · KB4568831 · Get-VirtualDisk · event 311

Storage Spaces: no redundancy, detached, unhealthy. Microsoft names the states precisely and explains them briefly. Here is the rest.

Windows reports a Storage Spaces virtual disk with a health state and an operational state, and Microsoft's documentation defines them tersely. No redundancy: the virtual disk has lost data because too many drives failed; the action given is to replace the failed drives and restore from backup. Detached, by policy: an administrator took the virtual disk offline or set it to require manual attachment. Incomplete: the virtual disk does not have enough redundancy remaining to successfully repair or regenerate its data. Unhealthy and Warning sit above them as summaries. On Storage Spaces Direct, Detached most often means the dirty-region tracking log filled, paired with event 311 asking for a data integrity scan. And in 2020, after the Windows 10 and Server 2004 update, parity spaces showed as RAW; Microsoft's KB4568129 put a compatibility hold on affected machines on 19 June, KB4570719 gave a workaround, KB4568831 on 31 July fixed the in-memory parity bitmap fault, and Microsoft's guidance throughout was not to run chkdsk. A pool of two to four physical disks is £500 + VAT upwards after the free look, fixed in writing, 5–10 days at the bench.

Free first lookOne fixed figure in writingNo data, no bill on most jobsReturn postage paid

Rather talk it through? An engineer answers the bench line
0800 6890668

Do not run chkdsk on a space that shows RAW, do not reset or delete the pool, and do not remove the missing disk from it. Where the pool's map is the fault, chkdsk repairs a volume that is not there and writes the damage back; a reset removes the database that describes the slabs. Export Get-StoragePool, Get-VirtualDisk and Get-PhysicalDisk, power down, and send every physical disk.

What each state means, and what is on the disks when Windows shows it.

A Storage Spaces pool carves its physical disks into slabs and allocates a virtual disk slab by slab across a number of columns, mirror or parity, with the map kept in a pool database replicated on every disk. Windows watches the physical disks and the database, and reports the virtual disk's health from what it can still do. Unhealthy with a disk missing is a two-way mirror or a parity space that can still read; No redundancy is the state past that, where Microsoft's definition is that the virtual disk has lost data because too many drives failed. In practice the drives are usually imageable, and the virtual disk is assembled from images with the slab map; Microsoft's documentation describes what Windows can do, not what a bench can.

Detached is different. Windows took the virtual disk offline, by policy, because an administrator said so or because integrity could not be assured, and on Storage Spaces Direct because the dirty-region tracking log that records in-flight writes filled up, in which case event ID 311 asks for a data integrity scan. The data and the map are intact; Detached is the system declining to attach until told. Incomplete, operational state 0xD003 in the MSFT_VirtualDisk class, means the virtual disk does not have enough redundancy remaining to successfully repair or regenerate its data: a repair should not be run, and the disks should be imaged first.

The 2020 issue is the documented case of a map fault with a healthy set. Microsoft's KB4568129 described parity Storage Spaces showing as RAW in Disk Management after the Windows 10 and Server 2004 update, noted that simple and mirror spaces were not affected, and applied a compatibility hold from 19 June 2020; KB4570719 gave a workaround; the 31 July 2020 preview update KB4568831 addressed an issue with in-memory parity bitmaps that could cause data integrity issues on parity spaces, and the hold was lifted on 13 August. Throughout, Microsoft advised against running chkdsk on affected volumes, because the volume was not corrupt; the parity space's map was being read wrongly, and chkdsk would have repaired the wrong thing onto the right data. Later reports of read-only pools after the 22H2 update and RAW parity volumes after 25H2 cumulative updates are user reports, not Microsoft-acknowledged issues, and this page does not treat them as more than that.

What it says, and what it means.

Describe yours to us →
What you see The usual reason Where that leaves you
Warning / Unhealthy; one physical disk missingStill readableImage the missing disk before it is replaced
No redundancyToo many physical disks lostPower down; every disk imaged; assembled from the slab map
Detached (by policy)Taken offline; integrity not assuredDo not reset; read-only attach on images
Incomplete (0xD003)Not enough redundancy to repairImage before any repair
Parity space RAW after a Windows updateThe 2020 map fault, or a database mismatchDo not chkdsk; the map is read from the database on images
Pool read-only after an upgradeMetadata version mismatchDo not delete or recreate

From the parcel arriving to your files going back.

Work we have closed →
01

Logged the day it lands, and the first look costs nothing Free

A case number goes on the parcel and a number on every member the day it is opened, matched to the slot you wrote on it. Each member goes on the imager its interface needs, never on a controller, and its metadata is read before a sector is: the level, the order, the stripe size, the event counts that say which member is current and which dropped out first. An engineer settles what has happened to the set and how much of it can honestly be read back. Back to you come two things together: a straight note of what is liftable and what is not, plus one figure, fixed and written down. Accept it, or decline and owe us nothing.

Nothing to pay for lookingA single figure, put in writingNo rebuilds, no imports, no initialise
02

Every member imaged, including the one that failed first

Every drive in the set is imaged sector by sector, weak areas last, on hardware that controls every retry, with a map of what could not be read kept for each. Members with failed heads go to the clean bench first; that is the drive site's work and the same bench does it. The drive that dropped out first is imaged too, because it still holds every stripe written before it dropped, and a rebuild that stalled part-way never reached them.

Sector by sector, weak areas lastThe first-dropped member included
03

The geometry, from the metadata or from the parity

A Storage Spaces pool is read from images of every physical disk: the pool database from each copy, the newest consistent one chosen, the virtual disk's columns, interleave and slab map taken from it, and the virtual disk assembled from the slabs in software. NTFS or ReFS is then opened read-only on the result, and where a chkdsk has already run, its changes are unpicked from the journal on a copy.

Metadata first, parity secondOrder, stripe, rotation, offset
04

Assembled in software, and repaired on the virtual volume

The set is put together from the images in software, with nothing written to any of them: the current members in, the stale member used only to fill holes a survivor could not give. The file system is checked and repaired on a copy of the virtual volume, VMFS and CSV volumes opened and the virtual machines' disks extracted, databases repaired where they need it. The originals are not touched again.

Nothing written to the imagesVirtual machines and databases opened
05

You see the file list before you pay

What was recovered is listed for you first, and only then does a bill exist. Approve the list and it is invoiced; turn it down and it is not — and where nothing has come back, most jobs carry no charge at all. Recovered data travels home on fresh media bought in for your job, with the postage at our end. Your case is not closed until you have opened the files on a machine of your own.

No charge until you accept the figureFresh media, supplied with the job5–10 days at the bench

From the bench

  • Microsoft's definition of No redundancy describes what Windows can do, not what a bench can. The drives are usually imageable.
  • Detached is the system declining to attach, not a loss. Do not reset the pool to make it attach.
  • The 2020 case is the lesson: a RAW parity space was a map fault on healthy disks, and chkdsk was the wrong tool. It still is.
  • Export the three PowerShell outputs before anything is changed; they record what Windows saw and when.

Tonight, in this order: stop writes and do not reboot repeatedly; press nothing the controller offers (F2, Import, Clear, Force online, Rebuild); photograph the screen and label the slots; export the log without changing state (PERC TTYLOG or storcli show all, an SSA diagnostic report, mdadm --examine on every member, zpool import with no flags, Get-VirtualDisk); power down and send every member, plus the controller if it was replaced or holds a key. The first-response page has the reasons.

One job, followed all the way through.

UK · RAR-2026-0622JOB LOGGED ✓

A five-disk parity space on Windows Server 2016, one disk retired, a second showing warnings, a repair started by Windows, and the virtual disk gone to No redundancy before it finished

All five disks came in. The two retired disks were imaged, the second with its weak areas last; the pool database was read from every image and the newest consistent copy chosen, giving three columns and a 256KB interleave and the slab map. The virtual disk was assembled from the slabs in software with the first-retired disk's slabs filling what the second could not read, the ReFS volume opened read-only, and the file shares copied out.

99.99% of the volume recovered9 days here, and back by post
Illustrative example — replace with a genuine case

What helps, and what harms.

Do this much first

  • Export Get-StoragePool, Get-VirtualDisk and Get-PhysicalDisk
  • Power down and note which disk Windows retired first
  • Send every physical disk in the pool
  • Say the Windows version and recent updates

What sets us back

  • Running chkdsk on a RAW space
  • Resetting or deleting the pool
  • Removing the missing disk from the pool
  • Repairing with a disk showing warnings

Questions answered before you commit.

Storage Spaces says No redundancy. Is the data really lost?

Microsoft's definition says it is. In practice the disks are usually imageable and the virtual disk is assembled from images with the slab map from the pool database. Power down and send every disk.

What does Detached by policy mean?

That Windows took the virtual disk offline, because an administrator set it so or because integrity could not be assured. The data and the map are intact; do not reset the pool.

Should I run chkdsk on my RAW parity space?

No. Microsoft's own guidance in the 2020 case was not to, because the volume was not corrupt; the map was being read wrongly. Where the pool's database is the fault, chkdsk repairs a volume that is not there.

What does it cost?

£500 + VAT upwards for a pool of two to four physical disks after the free look, fixed in writing; larger pools and Storage Spaces Direct from £1,250 + VAT.

How long does it take?

5–10 days at the bench.

Nothing gets worse while it is powered down.

Looking at it is free. Back comes a list of what opened and what did not, together with a single price to finish, set down in writing while you are still free to say no. Until that list reaches you, leave the server off and the drives in their slots.

0800 6890668