RAID 0 Issues - Please Help!

[Sneaky]

Alright, so to make a long story short I just got our of jail because I was arrested, and my computer was seized by local police. They've had it for a total of 16 months and did who-know-what with it and it's sat in an evidence locker since then.

The entire computer was unharmed when I got it two days ago, but it came to me with the power and data cables to my hard drives disconnected.

It wouldn't post, so I figured out that the CMOS battery needed to be replaced, and it boots just fine now, but I have a new problem to work on.



Now that the CMOS has been reset and the police have done who-knows-what with my hard drives (2x74g Raptor RAID 0 and 2x320gb Seagate singles), I can set up my motherboard (P5WDG2-WS Pro 975X) to view the 2 raptors in RAID, but when it tries to load my OS, it says no bootable volume found.

In Intel Matrix Storage Manager, my 2x74g raptor RAID 0 array has been disbanded, and when I go to set up a new array/volume, it says that all data on the disks will be cleared if I continue.


I have too much important data on the 2x74g raptor array that was (but hopefully still is) there to just reformat them and start from scratch, so I need to know if there's any way to replace the deleted array without loosing all my information or having to re-format, and if so, please describe what steps I need to take to do so.


Any help will be greatly appreciated, Thank You
-Sneaky

 

[Martel]

I don't know intel setup at all, but with ATI I setup raid and it asks if I want to wipe the drives, I say no. Then it generally doesn't want to boot because my boot priority will be set to run the secondary drives. So, setup the raid array, then unplug all secondary drives, then check your boot priority. Don't know if that will help at all, good luck.

btw now I would really like to hear the long story.

 

[Sneaky]

Intel ICH7R RAID setup isn't as nice - when I got to create the RAID array, it says "warning all data on disks will be lost, would you like to continue, yes/no"

*sigh* this is driving me crazy, I just hope I don't have to reformat... but if I do I'm just gonna switch to Vista or 7... I've been running XP Pro for the longest time and have refused to switch so far

 

[jgv115]

mm.. I really don't think you can get those files back. Unfortunately..

Although I'm also curious about the "long story"

 

[Sneaky]

I'm bored, so I'm going to venture off topic to satisfy the members of OC forum since I've been gone for so long.

I'm not getting too detailed, but the story goes like this over the past 5 years:
addiction to painkillers => addiction to heroin => loose 3 jobs in 6 months => have no money => commit burglary to support my drug habit (which was pretty bad) => end up in jail, but get myself clean => get released 1/13/10 and try to do some good for once, get back into PC community, etc

 

[freeagent]

Well, you have to make sure all of the drives are connected exactly as they were when you created your array. That means each drive has to be in the exact same port as it used to be, or else you run into that problem. If you had your storage drives connected when you created your array, then they have to be exactly where they were before.

The last time I did that too myself, I think I was able to access my storage drives by useing dskmngmnt and changeing some security or shareing options.

 

[Martel]

I'm sorry to hear about the problem Sneaky, but congrats on fixing the problem and turning it around. I have some friends and a sister in similar situations. Its not easy but it is worth it.

 

[Sneaky]

freeagent, all my disks are hooked up exactly the same as before... the only problem I'm running into before I attempt to re-create the array is the stripe size... I know it was either 32 or 64, but it's been so long I can't remember

I know a long time ago there was an "optimal" stripe size for running 2x74g raptors in RAID 0... by any chance does someone know what that was said to be, because thats the size I've used forever and it worked perfect for me

 

[jgv115]

I wouldn't go 32kb but that's just me. 64 or 128kb seems about right..

Also, i'm glad you are getting your life back on track. I wish you the best of luck in your life and I hope you can win because life is good for winners

 

[Sneaky]

well, so much for trying to salvage any data off my drives, I installed windows on a auxilary 40gb IDE, and booted into the drives from there

unfortunately the drives don't even show up on windows - I checked and no data partion exists on any of my 4 drives, so they've been wiped clean

time to start from scratch

 

[tuskenraider]

Well since you've got nothing to lose at this point, why not try recreating the arrays as they were previously and try the trail version of RAID Reconstructor to see if it'll yield any results.

 

[visbits]

well, so much for trying to salvage any data off my drives, I installed windows on a auxilary 40gb IDE, and booted into the drives from there

unfortunately the drives don't even show up on windows - I checked and no data partion exists on any of my 4 drives, so they've been wiped clean

time to start from scratch

What gives the police the rights to wipe your drives???

 

[fritzman]

well, so much for trying to salvage any data off my drives, I installed windows on a auxilary 40gb IDE, and booted into the drives from there

unfortunately the drives don't even show up on windows - I checked and no data partion exists on any of my 4 drives, so they've been wiped clean

time to start from scratch

Hey man... congrats on getting the life side sorted... takes real guts.

On the PC side... ActiveUndelete put out a version that will work through the disks and recover deleted data from raid volumes... you need to tell it what the settings were along the way, but basically it will have a hunt through the sectors of the disks and do it's best to reassemble what was there and present it to you for recovery. http://www.active-undelete.com/faq-raids-types.htm

I suggest you d/l the trial and have a go before giving up completely (link on the rhs of the page I linked above). Miracles do happen!

 

[Sneaky]

long time no see fritz - thanks for the link, i'm gonna try it out but im pretty sure the authorities already wiped out my drives pretty good... I'll be happy if I can manage to get anything back at this point

 

[fritzman]

long time no see fritz - thanks for the link, i'm gonna try it out but im pretty sure the authorities already wiped out my drives pretty good... I'll be happy if I can manage to get anything back at this point

Yeah man... nice to see you back on deck.

Definitely worth having a go at recovery... unless they took the time to do some decent cleaning of the drive (which would certainly surprise me), imo you stand a good chance at getting stuff back.

B

 

[Sneaky]

alright, that utility picked up absolutely nothing for deleted partions or data from a low level scan, so I already re-RAIDed my drives, formatted and installed windows, so much for all that but whatever, I'll survive

thanks for everyones help though
-Sneaky