RAID 6 failure - Partial Data Loss - How to recover lost data?

We have a RAID 6 array on a Dell 2950 with a PERC 6/i. 6 Total 1TB hard disks. Apparently 1 drive failed and the array went offline. When we rebooted, the PERC reported 2 foreign disks with information that needed to be imported. We imported the 'foreign disks' and the array came back to life.

Here's the problem, we had 2 Open E Volumes, and we had a VMFS (VMWare) attached via iSCSI. There are folders for each of the machines that can be viewed by browsing the data store through the VMWare vSphere Client.

When we browse the data store, most of the data is there, but some of the VMFS folders are simply missing. In one or two folders, VMDK files were missing.

Clearly, the RAID 6 should not have gone offline, and Dell asked us to patch the firmware on the controller. This has created a stable array. However, we now have data loss and we would very much like to recover some of that data. Is there a recommended approach? VMWare told us that they were dead in the water and to take it up with Open-E and/or Dell.

Any recommendations on tools that might be able to repair the data. We believe the data must be there, but this environment has few tools to view the array at a binary level.

Yes this is hard to face without backups or some type of replication with the DSS V6 using the iSCSI Auto Failover feature for such cases and though RAID 6 may feel the way to be protected it still is a single point of failure. You might have some chance with a program called GetBack Data that some have found useful but is hard to tell as every data type corruption is different or some type of recovery service like Ontrack.

What is Dell saying? When the array went offline and you imported the foreign disks, you may have lost your best opportunity there for a full recovery.

Secondly, please understand that most applications have no idea whatsoever of the physical configuration of the disks. Most RAID implementation are proprieatry in nature. This is the reason why you can't take use an Adaptec controller to replace an LSI one and expect to just be able to see your data.