• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

SATA Raid-0 Data Recovery Help

D

dexvx

Diamond Member
I have an Intel i865PE board with the built in ICH5-R 0/1 device hooked up to 2x 160GB SATA Maxtors in Raid-0 on a WinXP Pro system. I removed the Maxtor's (just the power/SATA cable but I left the drives in the HDD cage) for some reason, which I forgot, about 3 months ago and didn't bother plugging them back in until now. I specifically remember NOT formatting the drive before I unplugged them.

Right now, I hooked them up in Raid-0 again, and unfortunately cannot get the system to recognize any of the data. Now, oddly enough, when I open Windows Disk Management, I get this:

http://students.washington.edu/dexvx/diskmanage.JPG

I have no idea where that other 305GB Block or the more mysterious 186GB block comes from. Disk-0 I just enabled about 10 min ago. I cannot access it unless I format it.

System configuration for this machine is as follows:

Pentium 4 2.4Ghz / 800 / 512
Asus P4P800 DLX (i865PE)
2x 512MB DDR400
Adaptec 29160 SCSI
36GB Maxtor Atlas IV 10K partitioned 10/24 (C and D-drives)
2x Maxtor 160GB SATA's in Raid-0 non-partitioned
CDRW (that's CD-ROM 0 / E-drive)
Daemon Tools (that's CD-ROM 1 / F-drive)

EDIT: The WinXP Pro is a fresh format (minus all the critical upgrades/SP2/MS-Office/and some bare essentials)

I would really like to get the data back, but its not a huge deal, because it just contains mostly TV shows.

Thanks
 
Originally posted by: Ricemarine
You did INSTALL the raid drivers if tere were any right during the windows installation?...

Btw, UW or WSU?
Click to expand...

UW-Seattle

I installed Win-XP on the SCSI drive, didnt even enable the raid device until I really wanted to get the data, which was about a week ago. The only driver seems to be the IAA-Raid device. But AFAIK, you don't even need that because of the Boot-ROM that comes with the ICH5-R.

I got the same number of bogus drives a week ago with a REALLY old Win-XP install. I figure it should be fixed with a fresh install, but apparently it didn't.
 
You still need the drivers, the boot-rom only allows you to set up the raid array, you still need to install the drivers for windows to recognize the raid array.
 
Originally posted by: stevty2889
You still need the drivers, the boot-rom only allows you to set up the raid array, you still need to install the drivers for windows to recognize the raid array.
Click to expand...

The only drivers Asus posted are the IAA-Raid drivers.

Windows recognizes the array, and prompts me to format it, but that'd most likely get rid of all the data. And it really doesn't answer why I got all the extra drives problem.
 
Try swapping the SATA drives, in case it makes a difference in exactly which SATA ports are connected to which of the two drives. Might also disconnect the SCSI drive, and see if the raid array is bootable.
 
Originally posted by: vailr
Try swapping the SATA drives, in case it makes a difference in exactly which SATA ports are connected to which of the two drives. Might also disconnect the SCSI drive, and see if the raid array is bootable.
Click to expand...

I swapped the SATA cabling, it made no difference.

As for the SCSI drive, the BIOS will attempt to boot the raid array, but since it has no OS, it will fail. Like I said, I want to see if I can recover any data from the array before attempting to format it, but I'm pretty confident if I reformat and make it bootable, it will be bootable.
 
UW-Seattle
Click to expand...
Dawg cooties, ewww! 😛 I must get around to making the Cougar avatar sometime... 😀

I could be off track here, but I'd start from the RAID BIOS end of the stick, not the Windows end. Possible problems I could think of:

1) If the RAID controller is not in RAID mode to start with, then it would just go "oh, two unformatted hard drives" and report the drives that way to Windows. The controller could've gotten reset to default non-RAID mode if the CMOS was reset (BIOS update for example, or a failed OC that resulted in the mobo using bail-out defaults on the next POST attempt). In the BIOS, you'd go to MAIN > IDE CONFIGURATION and set Configure SATA As RAID to Yes, I believe.

2) If the SATA controller is in RAID mode, but it doesn't regard the two drives as one entity anymore, then it won't present them to Windows as an array, just maybe two random drives. And then Windows will be 😕. If you do the Ctrl + I at POST and go into the RAID BIOS, does the RAID controller's BIOS remember that those two drives are an array?


Some RAID controllers have a bail-out function or whatever you want to call it. Looking at the P4P800 Deluxe manual, chapter 5.4, it doesn't look like there is such a thing for this one. If it were me, and the pair of drives had lost their identity as an array, I'd try redefining them as an array again and see what happens. 4th down and 25 with 3 minutes to go... 😉
 
The SATA in BIOS is in raid mode. The drives were seperately tested using Maxtor's HDD Diagnosis software (the 3 hour full scan) and seperately they were given the "Pass" result.

IAA and Windows XP Pro seems to think that the Raid configuration is solid:

http://students.washington.edu/dexvx/raidvol.JPG

When the BIOS SATA-Raid is enabled, those 2 drives are automatically setup in Raid-0 configuration. These drives were supposed to be in Raid-0 mode when I removed the power/SATA connectors a few months back. IAA does not recognize any of the "strange" drives that Windows Disk Management recognizes.

Currently the drives are mounted on G-drive, but in order to access them, Windows forces me to do a format, which would obviously result in lost data.

Edit:

Whats interesting is that the "Missing" 186.31GB drive is equal to the size of a single Maxtor SATA 160GB + Maxtor SCSI 36GB (152.7GB + 33.9 = 186.5GB)
 
I figure one of the drives must've "hic-cup'ed" during Raid-0 operation in thus the data is pretty much not recoverable.

I reformatted and everything works fine, minus the lost data.
 
well next time just to verify that the drives are setup correctly reinstall windows on em (take all other drives out) and when it gets to almost the last step before formatting you know it has seen the drive and works you can reboot without going into setup and go into the old windows installation
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top