Just for the records

now the OS recognises the raid as a RAW partition

while the Dell UI recognises it as a healthy VD with the same name/RAID level/strip size as before.

One more question please: What does E mean in "Virtual Disk 0 : RAID 5 :1.14432E7 MB"

Well, fortunately I had read inside here some advise NOT to force online a bad drive.

Fisrt I changed it with a new one and then forced all drives to ONLINE.

In between more and more drives went OFFLINE as I pulled wrong cables.

I also did tried to import foreign config (inside the windows graphical UI) but all found foreign configs where the same

"I then changed everything to On line state"

This is where you went wrong.  You should have stopped and asked for help when you discovered you pulled the cable for the wrong drive.

When you say you "changed everything to online state" ... did you force online ALL drives, including the failed one?  

As soon as you pulled the cable on the wrong drive, the RAID 5 went offline.  What you should have done, is put the disk back in, boot to CTRL-R, and Import the Foreign Configuration.  Forcing online that drive alone may or may not have been the problem (unlikely to have caused it), but when [if] you forced online the originally failed drive, then you forced the controller to use its configuration and data, which was most likely out of date - and probably corrupt too ... the controller would have been unable to properly reconcile the mismatched data and would have just scrambled the data in the process.

If you MUST get the data back, then call a data recovery service ... you are looking at $1000-2000 PER DISK in a RAID array for recovery.  Otherwise, just wipe it out, configure/initialize it again, and start over.  Initializing will destroy what little may be left of your data.

Wish I had better news for you.  I'd ask if you have a backup, but the downside to having several TB's of storage is finding a sufficient method to back it up, so I'd be inclined to guess you don't have one.

Yes, the hardware recognizes the array as healthy, but it doesn't have to care about the actual file system, which is obviously corrupted - the degree of which remains to be seen, but is likely quite high, if not complete - it only cares about the storage base on which the file system is laid.

e = scientific notation:

1.14432e7 MB = 11443200 MB = 11,443,200 MB = 11,443 GB = 11.4 TB (the usable size of a 7-disk RAID 5 after the bit math)

"Data-recovery didn't yield hopeful results"

You need to call a data recovery professional, like Drive Savers or OnTrack.  DYI software is often too hard or ineffective.

OK, forget the failed drive, perhaps I can copy it to another drive exactly the same.

Let's say Imy PC was stolen but I found my drives.

I buy another perc 5/i adapter and try to re-build the RAID.

Will my data be there ? Or initialization destroys data ?

"I mix the cables I pull everything out or I delete the RAID. The data remains unaffected?"

I don't understand what you mean by this.

"Is there a way to re-build the RAID and get the data back?"

In my experience, and from what you have said occurred, no, the data on the array has been scrambled/corrupted beyond your ability to recover anything without ADVANCED recovery methods ... only a professional can tell you if there is a chance to recover anything at this point.  Calling is free, recovery is very expensive.

hello again.

Data-recovery didn't yield hopeful results...

I am trying to find a post-catastrophy solution.

If I take away the failed drive and manage to copy it sector-by-sector to another healthy drive

would I have any hope to re-build the RAID ?

Cluster size is the same, the hardware remains the same, the drives are in the right order, what steps should be taken?

Should I first initialize and then try Data-recovery ?

Let's put it another way.

I mix the cables I pull everything out or I delete the RAID.

The data remains unaffected? Is there a way to re-build the RAID and get the data back ?