Recover from accidental format of RAID0

I was in the process of installing Windows on a separate disk so I could do some trouble shooting on the RAID0 system. In the installation process I accidently said yes to format of the RAID volume.

Is there any hope at all to recover/undo the format? It was a quick format only.

The computer is a Dell Dimension 9100 with a Intel matrix RAID controller.

Edit: Ignore this; does not apply in this situation (see subsequent posts).

Unfortunately simple undelete-type tools won't work. Each drive in a RAID-0 2-drive array essentially has 1/2 the data. When looking at any single drive from the array you basically have gibberish. (Try deleting every other block from a drive and then try to recover it.)

You need to "glue" the drives back together, which require RAID recovery tools. Several out there at various price points, some free. You'll need enough spare disk space for a complete copy of the data you want to recover.

Whether it's worth it depends on how much the data is worth; see, e.g.:

www.diskinternals.com
www.z-a-recovery.com
www.runtime.org

I downloaded Recuva yesterday and did a first run but did not find much. I selected the deep scan option and it actually found a buch of files. However it seemed to stop after finding so many files.
Have started it again this morning, only to look for specific file types like pictures to see if that gets me what I need.

http://www.recuva.com/

jedimasterben -- Oops, yes, you're right. Thanks for the correction. My bad; I mistakenly thought the RAID-0 array had become decoupled.

My external drive (WD - 500GB My Book)may have been accidentally reformatted and now can not be seen under "My computer". It is seen in disk management but says not initialized. So my question is how can I run any of this software mentioned if drive is not seen in "my computer"? Do I have to initialize? I have read that I should not initialize because that will keep me from ever recovering the data, is this true? I downloaded Recuva but it needs to see the hard drive.

Running ontrackrecovery demo (which saw the drive in disk management) then I will try active file to compare. Thanks for the confirmation on not initializing. I will re-post the results.

I am currently using GetDataBack for Fat and it has recovered majority of my files. It is taking a while but I have 350+GB to recover so its understandable. I have gotten all of my important files recovered and would recommend this product to anyone who has accidently formatted a hard drive. I got the download from download.com. The software showed all my file exactly how they were previously. I then had to order a key code from runtime.org for $69. This is the same software I think Fry's electronics was going to use and charge me $150 to do the same recovery. A savings of $81 plus I own the software so if it ever happens again I have it. Hope this helps some else out who has the same problem.



Each one Teach one!