Access external hard drive windows 7

In what raid box were the drives? Most consumer raid devices runs linux and uses a linux filesystem which cannot be read natively on windows. You will need to determine the filesystem used by your NAS and install the appropriate software to on windows to read the drives

Since you say raid you will also need to know which type of raid. With two drives there are only 3 modes, 0,1, or jbod. If it was raid 0 then you cannot seperate the disks as data is written in a "half to each drive" and both drives act as one to provide nearly double speed over a single drive. Typically nothing but the original raid controller type will be able to read the raid0 drives.

if its raid1 or jbod then, as Nothing_but_nas stated, its probably an issue with the file system used. If its linux there are several linux distro which offer bootable cd's and Ubuntu even offers a version that will run under windows. This might be an easy way for you to access the drives in that situation.

it is FreeNas from SourceForge. They were in Raid (5?) as one is a complete mirror of the other. I am trying to get away from the box (clunky x386 p2). I am considering purchasing a prosumer/smb NAS box (Synnology/QNAP, or similar.) - would they be able to be accessed/used in that? ask you can tell, i know enough to be dangerous. :-) thanks!

Mirror is RAID1 not RAID5. You need at least 3 disk for RAID5. FreeNAS uses ZFS for filesystem. One of the windows users might be able to help with reading it in windows 7.

If you are getting a SOHO NAS, you cannot add the drives directly and retain the data. However, migration is still possible without getting additional disks. To do this, look for a NAS which supports creating degraded RAID array or support raid migration (netgear/infrant calls this xraid). If it is not listed in the manual, call the manufacturer to verify before you buy.
1. Backup any important data you don't want to loose
2. Pull one of the drive from your freenas box
3. Add the pulled drive to your new SOHO NAS and create a degraded raid1 (this is a mirrored raid with 1 disk missing)
4. Copy the data over your network from the freenas box to the new SOHO NAS. Direct copy will be fastest, but you can also mount both NASes on your pc and copy the data (this will be slow)
5. Once the data is copied, pull the remaining drive from the freenas and add it to the SOHO NAS.
6. Add the next drive to the RAID array on the SOHO NAS and it should rebuild automatically.
7. Enjoy your new SOHO device.

I have a FreeNAS box and can see all of my shares on all of my PCs (Linux and Windows).

If you have setup FreeNAS and the shares correctly they should show up under network in windows explorer.

If you don't think you have FreeNAS setup correctly post back with what type of shares you are using and we can try and help.

The primary issue I am having with the FreeNas box is that the IP address was corrupted when I upgraded my router. I attempted to update this within the FreeNas portal it defaults to the original IP address, causing a conflict and uable to access the local network as expected. I know this seems elementary, and it may be. Maybe I need to spend some quality time with the FreeNas topic thread? ;-)

I am considering a Synology solution. From what is mentioned above, sounds like i need to be able to access/backup the FreeNas drive to back it up to a different drive, as any degrated RAID will be required to format the drive(s) before rebuilding the RAID. Is there any way to migrate by dropping the drives into the Synology box and have them acknowlege/access the content?

thanks

Firstly, what you have is an IP conflict. How are you assigning IPs to devices on your network, static or DHCP? If you are changing NAS devices because of an IP conflict, then you are making a mountain out of a mole. The IP should be a quick/easy fix.

Synology does not read zfs so you can not drop the drive into the new device.