How to recover hard drive after low-level format?

[PhoenixOrion]

I have two Maxtor diamondmax 9 in raid 1 configuration. I turned off the onboard raid controller (Silicon Image) coz I decided not to run the array anymore. There was a prompt for low level format by the controller and ran it not really knowing what "low level" really meant.

What are my options at this point?

 

[Blain]

Did you actually do a low level format on both of the drives?

 

[PhoenixOrion]

low level format logical drive info - from within silicon image driver on both drives when i deleted the raid set.

bios detects the drives but they are not in the windows device manager.

i've had the maxtor in raid 1 for two years. i remember back then that the setup was easy and smooth. now i feel i should have just left it alone

checking into "disk management".........

 

[Blain]

In RAID 1, couldn't you have just removed a drive?
Wouldn't the controller simply think that a drive had failed?

 

[SnoMunke]

if you did a low level format, forget it, data is gone....

 

[Blain]

Originally posted by: SnoMunke
if you did a low level format, forget it, data is gone....

Not necessarily...
It becomes a matter of determining IF the data is worth the cost of retrieval and if the drives have been written over or not.

 

[PhoenixOrion]

got it fixed.

it looks like the sata raid controller "low level format" does not erase everything. I had to resort to this when I couldn't get a standard format of HD in windows or even fdisk in DOS boot until I moved the pagefile and disabled disk defrag monitor software (duh moment).

i had to hotplug the drives after computer restart then set active partition/format within windows "disk management" and it worked.

i was stumped in the beginning why windows would not detect low-level formatted drives connected to the onboard (southbridge) sata controller. But I finally have my drives. Yay!!

 

[corkyg]

I only know of one progran that will do a non-destructive low level format - that is Gibson SpinRite - now ver. 6. Anything else is destructive. It might be possible to recover the data if it is worth hundreds of $$$. That's what it will cost to send it to a lab. Sorry!

At least you now have your drives back and can do a fresh install, etc.

 

[Bozo Galora]

a bit fuzzy on all this.
if i understand correctly, you didnt recover any data, just got the drives to partition and format again.
by hotplugging after boot, got them to be rerecognized in windows with O/S on some other drive so you could resetup as before??

 

[JimPhelpsMI]

Hi, Sno pretty much said it! What's called LOW LEVEL FORMAT today is really just writing over everything on the drive. It's not as easy as TV shows make it seem. It's pretty much GONE! Luck, Jim