BeerFan Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Hello folks, I booted up my system the other day to a nasty message saying that my RAID0 array had failed. It was a 2 * 500gb RAID0 array, and now only one of the drives is being detected by the BIOS. I had the array set up with 4 separate partitions: 1 - WinXP; 2 - Vista; 3 - Win7; 4 - Data. Is there any possible chance of data recovery here? Are there any solid and free data recovery utilities out there? The Data partition is the only one i care about recovering, but none of the trial versions of data recovery tools that i've tried (GetDataBack, EASUS Data Recovery Wizard) have even detected that partition. Help? T.I.A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin-uk Veteran Posted June 19, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 19, 2010 I used to have a quote in my sig: in raid 0, the 0 stands for how many files you get back when something goes wrong. I think a specialst raid data recovery tool might work, i dont think normal data recovery apps will work because they access the drive differently. ive never needed to recovery from a raid array fail, and hopefully will never have to :ninja: +Warwagon and deactivated01032015 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phenom II Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Im RAID 0 too and many times over have lost files when I mess something up, nowadays I store important stuff elsewhere but still keep my RAID 0 - I couldnt go back to a single drive now Has the actual drive failed? You could try spinrite on the drive, it boots off the disk and might be able to repair the drive long enough for the RAID controller to let you boot and save stuff Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
voidpharoh Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Without resorting to specialized tools or expensive recovery services (and even then unsure if that would help) you most likely are not going to easily recover your lost data. This is the reason why making backups of hard to replace data is important. RAID 0 is fine for your operating systems, but if you care about your important data you'll have it in a RAID 1, 5, etc.. array that has redundancy + have a separate backup system in case something goes severely wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted June 19, 2010 Author Share Posted June 19, 2010 Thanks for the replies! The problematic drive spins up normally, doesn't make any strange or unusual sounds, and appears physically to have no problems. However it is not detected by the BIOS. I have an external drive that i periodically use for storing backups of all of my important files, but it had been a few months since my last backup, and i'm now obviously paying the price. I think i'm going to try the SpinRite suggestion... wish me luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
acnpt Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 Could be that the hard drive's logic board has failed, so if you can find the same model, you could swap it over :unsure: ***I'm no expert*** Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alfaaqua Posted June 19, 2010 Share Posted June 19, 2010 And this is why data is kept on a RAID1 or (better yet) a RAID5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted June 19, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 19, 2010 The "R" in RAID stands for "Redundant". Since RAID 0 has NO redundancy, it should just be AID 0 Sorry, but unless you got tons of cash (or a backup), you are out of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted June 19, 2010 Author Share Posted June 19, 2010 Well, no dice on that attempt. SpinRite does not detect the drive at all. I'll see what data it can recover from the drive that still works, i suppose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giantpotato Posted June 20, 2010 Share Posted June 20, 2010 Well, no dice on that attempt. SpinRite does not detect the drive at all. I'll see what data it can recover from the drive that still works, i suppose. There won't be any useful data on the drive that still works, unless your important data consists of thousands of files smaller than 64KB (or whatever your stripe size was). When you use RAID 0 your data is split evenly (more or less) among the two drives, so if you have a 1MB document, 500KB will be one the first drive and 500KB will be on the second drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted June 20, 2010 Share Posted June 20, 2010 Yep, you're out of luck. Next time, don't use Raid 0 if you can avoid it. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted June 21, 2010 Author Share Posted June 21, 2010 Ok, so after countless hours of scanning and rescanning with GetDataBack, i'm throwing in the towel. The program somehow sees the lost directory structure, but cant recover the actual files. What a tease... So, new question. What is the hands-down, 100%, never-going-to-fail hard drive? (yes, that's a joke) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giantpotato Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 Why did you waste countless hours if everyone here already told you it's impossible to recover the files? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted June 21, 2010 Author Share Posted June 21, 2010 Why did you waste countless hours if everyone here already told you it's impossible to recover the files? What's your point in asking? I was hoping for a miracle. Now, back in your cave, troll. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soldiers33 Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 becuase maybe it would have worked, might aswell try. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TokiToki Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 Ok, so after countless hours of scanning and rescanning with GetDataBack, i'm throwing in the towel. The program somehow sees the lost directory structure, but cant recover the actual files. What a tease... Have you tried using RAID Reconstructor? It's worked for me once in the past. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BeerFan Posted June 21, 2010 Author Share Posted June 21, 2010 Have you tried using RAID Reconstructor? It's worked for me once in the past. I looked at that, but decided against it. In your situation, was there a drive that actually failed? What type of RAID array was it helpful with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
giantpotato Posted June 21, 2010 Share Posted June 21, 2010 Have you tried using RAID Reconstructor? It's worked for me once in the past. That's not going to work with only a single working drive from a RAID-0 array. Nothing can be done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted June 22, 2010 Veteran Share Posted June 22, 2010 Ok, so after countless hours of scanning and rescanning with GetDataBack, i'm throwing in the towel. The program somehow sees the lost directory structure, but cant recover the actual files. What a tease... So, new question. What is the hands-down, 100%, never-going-to-fail hard drive? (yes, that's a joke) RAID1 RAID5 and so on. Any of the other types of RAID that have the "redundant" part will survive a drive failure (and even removal). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+LogicalApex MVC Posted June 22, 2010 MVC Share Posted June 22, 2010 Sometimes we have to learn life's lessons the hard way. You partitioned the array to let your data survive a format, but neglected to move that critical data to a RAID 1 or 5 or 6. Hopefully you won't be in this position again in the future. Your best bet, although I agree with you giving up, would be to figure out why the drive is not being detected. If the logic board is dead and you can replace it you might get the drive to return to normal. Then you might have some chance using RAID recovery tools or it might just return the array to normal (not sure though as I've never run RAID 0 myself). So if you are looking for anything magical look at the physical drive side of the picture. As with no recovery data nothing can put the data back that is on the failed drive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Japlabot Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 What's your point in asking? I was hoping for a miracle. Now, back in your cave, troll. There is no trolling going on here- the way that RAID0 is designed, is is physically impossible to reconstruct your data using only one of the drives. RAID0 evenly splits the data across both drives, this means that the remaining drive only has half your data, in tiny little pieces, it does not physically contain the other half. Your only hope of data recovery is to repair the failed drive. There are professional services available for this (expensive) and a few guides on the internet how to replace the IDE (the circuit board on the drive) with an identical model yourself, but it's very time consuming and that's assuming that it's an IDE failure as oppose to the disk itself. I agree though, that you were hoping for a miracle, it would take divine intervention to reconstruct data that is not physically there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delete my account please Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 You'll be fine. Just reconstruct the array and restore from one of your nightly backups. :) Raa 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloaked Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 What's your point in asking? I was hoping for a miracle. Now, back in your cave, troll. Miracle? lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rudy Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 You'll be fine. Just reconstruct the array and restore from one of your nightly backups. :) Does it really sound like he has a backup :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrossCheck Posted June 22, 2010 Share Posted June 22, 2010 Why did you waste countless hours if everyone here already told you it's impossible to recover the files What's your point in asking? I was hoping for a miracle. Now, back in your cave, troll. just think with those countless hours trying to recover the data from the raid 0. now you are in the hole time wise with the performance gain from using Raid 0 in the first pace. if you decide to go back to raid 0 try a raid 0+1. get a 3rd disk to backup data daily 2 You'll be fine. Just reconstruct the array and restore from one of your nightly backups. :) the correct smiley to be used in this situation would have been :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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