ga-965p-ds3 xpress recovery cd destroys raid arrays!

[tastyratz]

so I had a 965p-ds3 rev 2.0 that died on me, I RMA'ed it to newegg and received back a v1 :-( I installed it anyways.

My main windows partition is 2x36gb wd raptor 10krpm drives on the jmicron controller. It was setup on the first board and could be read fine on the second one.

Since it was stock f10 bios, stock clock I decided before I overclocked I would try using the expressrecovery2 iso file from their website. I downloaded the iso (while booted to my working raid), burned it, and rebooted. I booted to the gigabyte cd, clicked ok to use xpress recovery. A progress bar appeared showing 1-2 files copying or so, then I received an error stating that it cannot find a windows drive and to click ok.
My first thought was damn, guess it doesnt like using raid. I shut down, powered back on, and found I was unable to boot! When looking at the on-board raid configuration it said my raid 0 array was broken. It showed both drives, one said it was in the array, the first one said it was a non-raid disk! I now cannot boot windows!

My guess is that the cd tried caching files to the first drive it found overwriting the raid signature.

This post is here for 2 reasons. 1 it is to document my discovery so nobody else has this problem, maybe finding a trend.

2. Does anyone have any idea how I might be able to recover my array so I dont lose my partition, all my installations, settings, bookmarks, etc.... Things I wont be able to replace!?!?!?

P.S. Yes I know I should have everything on regular backups in case of these things. I did too, but I guess the norton ghost image on the hard drive that died 1 week before my motherboard quit wont help me now.

 

[tungtung]

My first suggestion is make sure nothing writes to any of those two drives.
Then try use those data recovery softwares to read off that one drive that is not recognized by the array. See if there are any data there at all. I mean this could all be that the drive actually died or something - drive recognized in BIOS doesn't always mean it works fine.

Once you can verify that the "damaged" drive is working and seems to contain all your data (or at least part of it), I would say the next step is trying to read those RAID array on similar motherboard (with the RAID 0 setting of course). And see if that would help. I honestly am not sure whether you can actually move RAID 0 arrays to different motherboard/controllers so that is one thing you might try next.

Edit: Also check cables ... sometimes these problems are caused by one measly cable getting loose and screw everything up.

 

[tastyratz]

Yea its not a loose cable, both drives are being detected and reported as healthy by s.m.a.r.t. The drive is showing up fine, its just that the computer thinks the drive does not belong to the array. The drives are not making strange noises, as far as diagnostics go its showing healthy as a horse - dont think the drive failed... no write corruption or anything.

Unfortunately hardware raid cannot be moved to another motherboard or card 90% of the time because they have specific signatures in the way they create the tables on the drive

I am going to try to install windows on another drive and boot to that, then try to recover the raid data.

kicker is I accidentally ran over my xp cd cracking it about a week ago. Figures.

I have experienced so many stupid quirks with this motherboard, and gigabyte tools in general. That matched with their joke of an RMA process has lead me to want to go down another path. I am buying a p5b-plus tomorrow to replace this thing and selling my board on ebay for a hundred bux+ship. Not buying another gigabyte product.

 

[Fallengod]

Heh, you shoulda read all the GA DS3 problem threads before buying that board. Anyways, that sucks. I hope you backup all your data on another hd or dvd disc before hand. That DS3 though is definitely, lets say, not the best possible motherboard choice though.

To be honest, id go with the Abit quadgt or dfi infinity. The abit quadgt is at a freaking low currently at $129AR at newegg now. It used to be $159AR. Of course, theres a slew of boards out there. All the nvidia chipset line as well to pick from.

 

[tungtung]

I'd suggest once you have the new set up ... don't do RAID 0 again ... the benefit that it offers almost never justify the possible cost when it went under.

I hope you can retrieve the data off that drive ... by the way try those data recovery softwares, and try to "restore" whatever data was in that other drive ... hopefully that will enable you to salvage something off those array.

 

[tastyratz]

yea I have a copy of raid reconstructor I am going to try using. I think what I am going to do for now is build this mobo with my ram and cpu, pick up a cheap power supply and hd then sell it in an old case on craigslist. Someone will bite. I did my reading and im gonna get a dfi infinity p965-s, some ballistix ram since it has a 85$ rebate on newegg right now, and I will throw in my old trash p4 I have laying around to hold me over till the quad core price drop coming up.