Raid 0 array is broken after trying to change motherboard (help!)

iraheinichen

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Jan 7, 2010
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Hey guys,

so I have a raid 0 as my main hdd that windows boots off of, previously controlled by a Via vt8237r plus chip with two 300gb segate HDD's. Didn't build it or set anything up myself, came that way from my cousin

I needed several upgrades which also neccessitated a new motherboard - doing research and talking to several people, I got a Sigg sc-saer12-s2 pci-e raid controller to go with my new motherboard hoping that the array could be recognized and user as-is with my new hardware.

upon booting the new config, sure enough, it couldn't recognize the array. One drive was listed in raid format as "broken" and the other as a HDD drive. the rad utility asked if I would like to restripe or do a recovery of a raid 1. I did neither and powered down without selecting anything.

bummed out that it seemed impossible to transfer my existing array to my new setup, I removed everything new and reset up my old motherboard to offload the last remaining bits of data for backup before reseting the entire thing on the new setup

but now I'm getting the same problem. The raid 0 array is still broken with one drive listed as raid and "broken" and the other as an hdd

I need to get to my data, #1 - if it's possible to get it to work as is with my new raid controller, even better...but obviously my main concern is not losing that data

reading about this issue has been *incredibly* confusing on these boards with contradictory information everywhere, especially considering the fact that half these threads are from 2003 -- I need someone who knows RAID 0 in 2010 and what I can do to dig myself out of this hole

I'm not sure how I broke the array in the first place. Both HDDs spin up just fine, all their connections are clean, and they both register as there in my bios and raid utility - I am NOT positive, however, that I plugged them into the sata slots in the same exact order they were originally...but then again I've seen one person say that can break your array and another person say sata slots are interchangeable...

I also can't seem to find a simple answer of whether or not I can just use the raid bios utility to reconstruct the existing (or build a new) raid 0 array and access my data/OS that way without losing it...

Any help? :)
 

ShadowFlash

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Feb 28, 2009
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http://www.diskinternals.com/raid/

At $250 bucks, it ain't cheap, but I've used it and it works.

More than likely you are looking at software-based data recovery solutions only. Once the RAID 0 is broken, you're FUBAR. This will involve setting up a boot drive ( not one of your 2 RAID 0 drives ), installing recovery software, and spending a longggg time scanning for revorable files. You then of course should have another drive ( or network location ) to recover the files to so if and when something goes wrong during the recovery process, your files will not be overwritten. It's a very time consuming process, but if your data is that valuable, it is worth it. Good Luck....

insert lecture here on performing regular backups, especially before hardware changes, and the perils of RAID 0....
 

iraheinichen

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Jan 7, 2010
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Well that's a bummer...see, I DO have everything backed up, at least for the most part. I use genie auto backup with an external drive that should have everything up to a couple hours/days ago

it's just an anxiety trip to find out what's missing...but $249 just to get back a couple days work...? I don't know...I was hoping a solution would be easier

thanks ;)
 

ShadowFlash

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Feb 28, 2009
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When I accidentaly re-formatted, rearraged my array, built a RAID 10 on top of a RAID 5, reformatted again, installed an OS and all my programs, refilled it with backup data, and THEN realized that our enire picture collection from 12 years, and 3 kids, were missing from the backup....I had no choice...the wife was about to kill me....lol....no easy way to recover a RAID 0 though....sorry......glad you had a current backup though...most people don't....