I accidently re-formatted my RAID volume(s) – can data still be recovered?
In most cases data can still be recovered, but it will depend on how the volume was re-formatted. A re-format through the operating system (Windows, for example) will re-establish the logical volume quickly, but the previous data will still physically reside on the disk. A controller-level format may only overwrite the array information and leave the original data intact (a relatively quick format), or it may overwrite every block on every drive in the array (a considerably longer, low-level process). It depends entirely on the manufacturer of the controller and the format utility used.