Raid Recover

[slyfox2151]

hi

im using the ICH10R chipset to run 4 drives in a split matrix raid 0,

one partition is 400gb wile the other is 1400

now my problem is i have a drive or 2 drop out and the raid failed a couple times, however this is now fixed and i have verified all the data is still there on all 4 drives, i have use'd both the built in drive verifying tool and also stellar phoenix HDD recovery tool to check the volumes for data and both come back 100 %

however i cant seem to get windows (vista) to recinise the drives as they were b4, i have inisialised the drives in management but it shows free unallocated space, i made a simple volume on the 400GB part and it shows 100 % free space no data at all and wants me to format it to NTFS or FAT.

im not sure where i should go from here, stellar phoenix tool will get my files for me but i dont have any where to store them and the names are all numbers so its going to be hard to sort thru them

thx

 

[Sihastru]

...i made a simple volume on the 400GB part and it shows 100 % free space no data at all and wants me to format it to NTFS or FAT...

This is where you went wrong. When recovering data from arrays never do that.

All you can do now is use a recovery software to dump your data on another HDD (I know you said you don't have any spares but ask your friends for assistance...). Rebuilding the MFT is very tricky at this point, and the recovery software usually gets it wrong.

 

[slyfox2151]

i havnt touched the 2nd 1400gb volume at this point, is it still possible to recover that without using the recovery software??

 

[slyfox2151]

Bump.

 

[Sihastru]

Because I don't have direct access to your system, I can't really make an assessment and answer that question. My best guess is that you'll need recovery software.

You can also recover the data from the destroyed partition, provided that you didn't (fully) formated it yet. The recovery software might be able to recreate the second untouched partition without the need of a spare drive. For the first partition I think the software will fail and you'll need a spare drive.

How recovery software works: it will probe your drive for MFT data (slow process) and after it has detected all possible partitions (some won't be the real partitions), you'll have to browse through a temporary list of files and folders in order to identify the real partitions. Some partitions can be recovered in-place, as if the nothing happened, but most of the time this will fail.

If you don't have any experience with this particular problem or you are not very technically inclined then I recommend that you ask for someone to help you with this. You can in fact destroy all your data.

About the recovery software to use, watch this space, I will tell you what I have used in the past successfully and what you should stay away from. I have to get home just to be sure I don't give you the wrong recommendation.

 

[slyfox2151]

thx for your help,

if u need any info i should be able to provide it, i have not formatted any drives at all, i did however create a simple volume on the 400GB partition witch just shows it as being RAW and unformated. all info on that it copied onto the 2nd raid so i dont care if i lose the small one.

however it would be a lot easyer to be able to recover the larger raid then to go thru thousands of backups... i was just getting ready to do a single compleat backup next week

i know a lot however i dont know everything about pc's and not sure what software it is im looking for to solve this.

all info about raid =

ICH10R onboard raid controller (software/southbridge raid)
2x WD 640s aaks
2x 7200.12 seagate

both stripe size is 128k
physical and logical size is 512Bytes

all 4 drives are part of "array_0000"
there are 2 volumes under the array "Speed" = 400GB and "Storage"=1400gb

Edit:
would this tool do what im looking for http://runtime3.org/blog/?p=69

 

[Sihastru]

Hi there, sorry for the delay. What I have used and actually worked is GetDataBack for NTFS.

Software that I have used and didn't worked very well:

Active@ Partition Recovery - works well only if you have files smaller then ~ 1GB. If you have for example high def rips from your cam then files that are ~4.3GB or so will not be recovered correctly. It will seem like they were recovered, but they won't be.
Disk Doctors Data Recovery - didn't work.
Disk Internals Partition/RAID Recovery - didn't work.
EASEUS Data Recovery - failed.

There is a free recovery DOS-based recovery software, called TestDisk, it might work, or it might not work, I had mixed results with it, and I also find the text-based interface a bit complicated for the uninitiated. If you're not confident don't use it.

Edit: I haven't used Raid Reconstructor, so I can't tell you anything about it.

The rule of thumb: always use non-destructive modes because you can't be sure about what the software will do.

 

[slyfox2151]

okay ill give those a go, thx for your help

will post resualts in a couple days