Raid 1 died, is my data recoverable ?

[Haradeas]

I have hardware raid 0 and 1 ( p5E asus mobo )
Raid bios says everything is fine ( raid 1 got rebuild )
I have win xp pro
I have 2x 250 GB raid 0 and 2x 500 GB raid 1

Everything worked for 2 years till yesterday. My win xp pro didnt start but I knew from previous experiences that my raid 1 was the problem. So I unplugged them, restarted win xp and it ran fine. But after replugging the raid 1 again ( like I did in the past ) win xp suddenly says that the disk is empty ! and is only known as a unformatted disk - _ -

So I went from 350 GB on data on raid 1 to no data what so ever...

Is there a way to restore the raid 1 ?
But more important is there a way to get my data back ? ( no format of any kind had happened )

 

[vitpre]

I think you may need a data recovery software to help you to recover both raid 1 and the data. If it dose not work then try other solutions.
BTW, regularly back up important data is the best way to prevent data loss.

 

[dingo07]

Ok, TMI I think. What is dead? The RAID 1 that is 2 500GB drives that has XP Pro on one of the drives? Your description doesn't make sense. A RAID 1 is a Mirror, so what's on drive A is also mirrored to drive B

Disable the RAID and just connect the drive that works, then get another drive to build the RAID 1 with.

 

[Haradeas]

The unlogical part is that the data of my raid 1 is gone ( windows suddenly sees the drive as a unformated new disk, ( but no format of any kind had happend ). Is it better to break the raid 1 in the raid bios before I want to access them as seprate disks ? ( cause I tryed connecting each of the raid 1 disks separately but win xp still saw it as a new disk and the second disk he didnt see at all )

 

[dingo07]

I couldn't tell you exactly, I don't use RAID 1, it's pointless IMO... I just copy the data to another drive.

It would be best to test on another computer - take out the drive that XP says you have to format and plug it into another computer to see if it can see the data.

You can't check them on the same computer because the controller knows which drives are part of the RAID 1, unless you can specify which connections on the motherboard the drives are connected to - IDK, I didn't read the manual for your motherboard... if that's possible then connect it to a different port that's not assigned to the RAID

 

[doct3rphil]

for raid 1, try to access the raid controller (usually via a F-key) before Windows boots. there you can see which drive is bad, and replace it to rebuild the raid array to normal

 

[Haradeas]

@ Doct3rPhil, raid bios told me all was fine ( which it clearly wasnt )

By disconnecting the raid 1 to get my os started again, somewhere it went wrong and flagged 1 of my disks of raid 1 clear and unformatted new disk. Then when I plugged them both back in the raid 1 kicked in and copied the faulty disk to his disk. So both where useless ....

The way I solved it:

Not even with booteble OS I could check the data on the raid 1 disks, and yes like you said: the pc remember which disks were raid 1 and refuses to show any data what so ever ( as if both are new disks if you connect them 1 by 1 )

I didnt want to break the raid 1 ( several people said their data was lost ) so I just connected 1, got my data back with getdataback for ntfs ( they got a lot of experience with raid setups ).

Yes raid 1 is totally pointless thinking about it afterwards. In theory it sounds great but the practice told me the diff. Anyhow I just break down the raid 1 now and just copy my data on both disks from time to time. The good old backup is still the best thing you can do.

Still loving raid 0 btw ( the speed increase is huge ^^ )

 

[dingo07]

glad to hear you got it squared up - and yes, RAID 0 is quick fast, but you can count your data goodbye if one of those drives fail

 

[Haradeas]

@ Dingo07, as far as I know you cant tell the mobo which ports to use for raid and which to use for IDE etc, ( atleast not on my mobo ) in the bios it is raid or one of the others. I got my OS on the raid 0 setup

 

[dingo07]

@ Dingo07, as far as I know you cant tell the mobo which ports to use for raid and which to use for IDE etc, ( atleast not on my mobo ) in the bios it is raid or one of the others. I got my OS on the raid 0 setup

I suggest you get yourself a 120GB SSD and put the OS on it, and get rid of the RAID 0 - I only use my RAID 0 for working with Premier Pro CS5

 

[Haradeas]

I suggest you get yourself a 120GB SSD and put the OS on it, and get rid of the RAID 0 - I only use my RAID 0 for working with Premier Pro CS5

thx for the tip, Is the stuttering completely gone now ? ( I heared from a lot of people there were a lot of problems with it in the past )
Havent updated my spec in a long time ^^