Backed up data on RAID 0, now can't access it.

Both Harddrives show up in My Computer and Disk Management:

I think you are screwed...

Might try re-installing your old OS, MB drivers, and raid drivers, see if the drives are then readable. Then back up to dvd... But vista handles raid quite a bit differently.

Good luck.

Did you switch motherboards? If so, it's likely that they don't have the same RAID controller... If this has suddenly just happened... well... then I guess you need to look at your RAID settings in BIOS, as if you can see both individual disks of the array, the BIOS isn't doing what it should. Windows should only see one physical disk, not two.

Don't format, don't rebuild the RAID, etc., unless you're giving up on the data.

Did you install the RAID drivers under Vista? They should have been recognized afterwards, but could not be before.

When I installed Vista, I didn't install the third party RAID drivers where I would've originally had to press F6 for XP.
When I had the OS built, the drives had the little yellow "!" in Device Management. I installed the drivers from clicking the "Update Driver Software" and got the drivers from the motherboard CD.

I did not change motherboards or any other hardware. Just installed Vista.

Maybe that wasn't enough -- remember that there were two drivers, one for SATA and one for RAID and both were needed. Maybe you just installed the SATA drivers in Vista.

If it's any help, here are my BIOS settings:





I've tried enabling the RAID FUNCTION, but that doesn't fix it.
It looks like it'd work. The name of the RAID shows up in the BIOS, and when I boot up, but then it crashes and restarts.

I've tried all sorts of different configurations.

So should I reinstall Vista and install the RAID drivers when I do?
I thought with Vista, you didn't need to do that.

Why was the RAID function disabled? Unless this setting is for the Sil RAID controller and not the NV RAID controller that I presume you're trying to use, it needs to be enabled.

It doesn't look like Vista does this so differently that you don't need to install drivers. I guess it's possible, but I'd look at first enabling RAID at the BIOS level, and then re-installing the nVIDIA chipset / SATA/RAID drivers.

I've tried enabling it, and it looks like it'll work, but as it's booting up, it crashes...

That is an oxymoron: nohing stored on RAID 0 can ever be considered "backed up". Correctly, you would describe anything on a RAID 0 array as "exposed to extreme danger of catastrophic loss" (as you have discovered).

"Backups" are those copies which appear on DVD, NAS storage, Tape, offsite Internet storage, or large, removeable HDDs.

That is an oxymoron: nohing stored on RAID 0 can ever be considered "backed up". Correctly, you would describe anything on a RAID 0 array as "exposed to extreme danger of catastrophic loss" (as you have discovered).

"Backups" are those copies which appear on DVD, NAS storage, Tape, offsite Internet storage, or large, removeable HDDs.

Okay,
I saved all my music, photos, videos, Save Game files, bookmarks, installers, ISOs, etc., onto my RAID drive so I wouldn't lose it all when I formatted my Primary drive to install Vista.

When you click on the drive in explorer what is your error message? Access Denied? If so take ownership of the drive.

you took my very words. . cures I was too slow.

When I click on the drive, it tells me that I need to format it in order to use.

I'm guessing the only way I can fix this is to reinstall Vista and to be sure I install the RAID drivers with it.

Unless someone has an idea.

Only thing I can think of is to go into the Drive Management and import foreign disks(if that is an option)...

If you have a spare IDE HD lying around then I would suggest the following.

Remove your newly installed Vista HD.

PLug in your spare drive and install XP on it. Don't forget F6 to install Raid drivers during setup.

XP should recognise your array correctly and show it in the list of destination drives. Select the spare drive as your destination and install windows normally.

Once XP is installed copy your data away safely and then consider changing your Raid 0 config. As another poster has already stated. Raid 0 and backup is a contradiction in terms.

XP pro would be the better option if possible as it will allow you to take ownership of the files if it is required without going into safe mode.

I have just last night gone through exactly this process to recover the data from a Raid 0 setup for a customer. I cannot understand why Dell would supply a system with Raid 0.

Hope you find this info helpful.

It's probably a driver issue -- have you tried re-installing the platform / SATA/RAID drivers? Perhaps (1) uninstall the existing devices/drivers that you added, (2) re-enable RAID in the BIOS, and then (3) re-install the platform/etc. drivers.

I don't have an NV RAID array in Vista at present, but the RAID drivers seem to be present. I probably installed them after the initial Vista installation. I'm pretty sure I didn't F6 them in. The nVIDIA storage RAID device is enabled when I have RAID enabled in the BIOS (either at the top level only, or on the top level + enabled for SATA slots (although no drives are installed in those slots).

Also, you should be able to see the RAID array at the BIOS level. If you can't, then something's wrong there.

Well... disabling RAID is not really gonna help much, is it?

I've read in many forums now that Intel haven't released a RAID driver for Vista that works with the ICH8R southbridge... If that's what you've got on you board, then yout options are either back to XP or normal disks, instead of RAID.

Okay,
I saved all my music, photos, videos, Save Game files, bookmarks, installers, ISOs, etc., onto my RAID drive so I wouldn't lose it all when I formatted my Primary drive to install Vista.[/quote]

wow, you're royally screwed. RAID is excellent for a fault tolerant storage and backups, IF you use THE RIGHT RAID LEVEL!

YOU didn't do your research and used the WRONG raid level, RAID 0 's only advantage is speed, pure and simple. it is NOT fault tolerant whatsoever and is generally controller specific, meaning you can't just up and move a raid 0 setup from one computer to another one. plus, if you lose one of the drives the entire array is hosed. lost. gone. bye bye.

i have several raid setups, i have raid 0 for running my games since it's faster, raid 1 for safety and backups, and raid 5 for fault tolerance and big file server.

never put anything you can't afford to lose on a raid 0

d'oh

Valis

my only advice is to go back to xp and pray.

See if you can "Uninstall Vista".

If have not tested a Vista Upgarde, but I know with XP upgrades I could quickly revert to the prior OS via "add/remove programs".

The update process actually saved the previous setup of Windows entirely intact. I did this for one customer who found out too late that his key software did not run under XP.

This only works if you selected the option to save all previous data so you can uninstall the OS if needed.


With vista, I am not sure, but I'm told it is just as simple and quick.

as a computer technician that works for a company that does data recovery on a daily basis (i mean from DEAD harddrives... electronic and mechanical) follow his advice... it's pure brilliance...

to clear things up, and add a few steps:

1.) take out the vista o/s drive
2.) install spare drive with windows XP (preferrably xp pro... for file permission reasons)
3.) reinstall sata/raid drivers
4.) XP will recognize the raid setup once you're in
5.) once the raid is recognized, install the VISTA DRIVE as a SLAVE and DON'T BOOT FROM IT
6.) boot into the XP O/S
7.) access the RAID and migrate the data from the RAID to the VISTA DRIVE in an easy to locate folder
-- if this fails and says 'access is denied' you need to strip the permissions and take ownership of the files/folders
-- if you only have XP home, search google for programs that can do this for you..
8.) once the data is copied to the VISTA drive, turn the computer off, take out the XP harddrive, boot into VISTA and check your data!!!
9.) once this has been accomplished, format your RAID and consider RAID1 instead (RAID = Redundant Array of Independant Disks... there's nothing REDUNDANT about RAID0 except the hassle of fixing it when it goes down)
10.) Get your new REAL RAID going and smile as you accomplished a very difficult techy task  

Cheers -= Mark =-

as a computer technician that works for a company that does data recovery on a daily basis (i mean from DEAD harddrives... electronic and mechanical) follow his advice... it's pure brilliance...

to clear things up, and add a few steps:

1.) take out the vista o/s drive
2.) install spare drive with windows XP (preferrably xp pro... for file permission reasons)
3.) reinstall sata/raid drivers
4.) XP will recognize the raid setup once you're in
5.) once the raid is recognized, install the VISTA DRIVE as a SLAVE and DON'T BOOT FROM IT
6.) boot into the XP O/S
7.) access the RAID and migrate the data from the RAID to the VISTA DRIVE in an easy to locate folder
-- if this fails and says 'access is denied' you need to strip the permissions and take ownership of the files/folders
-- if you only have XP home, search google for programs that can do this for you..
8.) once the data is copied to the VISTA drive, turn the computer off, take out the XP harddrive, boot into VISTA and check your data!!!
9.) once this has been accomplished, format your RAID and consider RAID1 instead (RAID = Redundant Array of Independant Disks... there's nothing REDUNDANT about RAID0 except the hassle of fixing it when it goes down)
10.) Get your new REAL RAID going and smile as you accomplished a very difficult techy task  

Cheers -= Mark =-

Thanks Mark.

I tried installing XP to a spare IDE drive I had. I made sure to install the RAID Drivers from the floppy when I installed XP.
It loaded it up and XP showed the RAID drive, but it still told me that I had to reformat it.
Basically the same problem as Vista.

if you have no spare drive... follow these steps instead:

1.) format the vista drive and install windows XP (preferrably xp pro... for file permission reasons)
3.) reinstall sata/raid drivers
4.) XP will recognize the raid setup once you're in
5.) access the RAID and migrate the data from the RAID to the XP drive in an easy to locate folder
-- if this fails and says 'access is denied' you need to strip the permissions and take ownership of the files/folders
-- if you only have XP home, search google for programs that can do this for you..
6.) once this has been accomplished, break your RAID and format the harddrives as independent disks, or recreate a RAID as RAID1
7.) format the independent disks and move the data back to one or the other
8.) format the XP Drive, then reinstall the VISTA O/S
9.) the independent disks should automatically be seen in vista, with all your data intact
10.) Get your rig going and smile as you accomplished a very difficult techy task

Cheers again -= Mark =-

i shouldn't be telling you this, by try a recovery software called "OnTrack" EZ Recovery...

 

try something like partition magic to restore the file system?

UPDATE:

Alright, I found the latest ULi Drivers and installed those.
NOW, when I boot up with RAID Enabled, it Does not crash, and it shows up in My Computer as a single drive. But it still wants me to format it.






So, I guess what I'm trying to do is get the NTFS File System on there without formatting it.

great work   now, yes you need to have the file system structure restored without formatting (because right now, partition structure is gone, so Windows see's the 'drive' as RAW structure...

I agree with Axilon... try partition magic to restore partition information...

good luck -= Mark =-

I tried using Partition Magic to create a new partition, but it did not work. I kept getting an error when I tried:

http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm

go there and download the Drive Fitness Test... burn to CD and test your harddrives individually...



if they both check out good (0x00) then I suggest getting data-recovery software (even a trial version) to attempt to pull data off the RAID...

GAH!

Alright, I found a Data Recovery program that I can actually get to work. It found all my backed-up stuff, BUT, it wont let me copy them until I fork up $70.

It's called DART XP File Recovery Program.

Anyone either A) Have a Key I could use? or B)Know of other Data Recovering Software that works.

I would recommend Easy Recovery Professional. I used to use it when I worked in computer repair. Recently one of my hard drive's drive structure got corrupted and I lost 100 gigs of data. I tried every free ware utility I could find, and some found the files, but assigned them all a single file size, or didn't save the file names. It was basically a big hassle. Eventually I installed Easy Recovery Professional and it found all the files, with the proper file names, and the proper sizes, and allowed me to back them up to a separate disk. I learned my lesson, and last weekend I bought 2x500 gig drives and put them into an external raid 1 enclosure.

So basically, I recommend Easy Recovery Pro, you are gonna have to pay for it, but it isn't worth the hassle of cheaper or free programs.

Ever heard of Bittorrent?

Well of course I have. Actually a lot of the stuff that I have on that drive is torrented.  

Well of course I have. Actually a lot of the stuff that I have on that drive is torrented.  

Ok so dont ask for keys and use it.

Well of course I have. Actually a lot of the stuff that I have on that drive is torrented.  

Ok so dont ask for keys and use it.

i'm not a forum mod, but this last statement was unnecessary.. please don't promote the use of unlicensed or pirated copies of software (whether directly stated or implied).. leave it to the imagination.. should've left it at "ever heard of bittorrent?" .. he could've figured out the rest... just C.Y.A, so you don't get banned..   thanks

That's like saying "I crouched over a sleeping lion and dangled my balls in his open mouth."

I'd try to reinstall Vista and load the RAID drivers for F6. FIRST, enable the drives in BIOS as RAID 0. If you see the RAID array as an option to install the OS on, then you know Vista sees it, and therefore it should be there once you're up and running.

Good luck.

You coud try this one from www.runtime.org.

http://runtime.swmirror.com/raid.zip

I didn't need it with my recovery but you might find that it works.

Otherwise I'm pretty sure that Easy recovery pro has a 30 day trial.

SUCCESS

I managed to recover all my files and put them SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!

I have since then formatted my primary OS and my RAID 0!


In case you're wondering, I used a program called "Get Data Back"
Worked pretty good, I reckon.

Thank you to everyone who helped me through this horrible ordeal.  
I appreciate it.

Time now to go get another Raptor 150 and put that into a RAID 0 for my OS. And turn my Current RAID 0 into a RAID 1. (With maybe another 250GB drive)


Money money money money.

excellent news  

I am encouraged to see that you have learned your lesson because you are still planning to use a RAID 0 setup.

The drives that were in the RAID 0 that I had the problem with is now in a RAID 1.

I just ordered another Raptor and I'm going to put that into a RAID 0 with the one I have now for my OS and applications.
I won't have anything important on there. Thats what the RAID 1 is for.