RAID 5 Storage

Yes and no, depending on stripe size and file type. Data is typically striped across the drive array, so if a file was small enough to be written to only one drive, then that file might be recoverable just from that drive. But larger files will be split up among the drives and, depending on the kind of file, only parts could be recoverable (like text or maybe metafiles). A disk editor can display all the data contained on the disk, provided the disk is readable.
Here is a website with a graphic representation of this concept:
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/perf/raid/levels/singleLevel5-c.html

Think of this like recovering 1/x of a jigsaw puzzle (x being the number of drives in the array). Yes data could be recovered from it by reading the 1's and 0's and with a parity recovery utility it might be able to pull out bits and pieces of data. Whether this could be strung together to something meaningful is a little doubtful. Especially if the drive had failed in the first place (which is probably what happened if you replaced it).

But if you're companies paranoia level is high enough to not want to take the risk, even if it is low - get out the drill / sledgehammer / or whatever your favorite tool of HDD destruction may be...

Zaf

r-tt.com is a data recovery site that has software that can be used to recover data. The drive has to be instlled as a slave and the program works in windows with an explorer type of interface. You can try the demo to see if anything is recoverable and if so the software is cheap. Give it a try.

The last place that I worked had a computer policy that all data on computers be encrypted. At first I didn't appreciate the value of this because the data from disk was decrypted at the server. Eventually I realised that it was to address exactly this situation. Using encrypted file systems on disks makes it more difficult to retrieve useful information from discarded disks.

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