Raid 0 Problem, lost all data?

brian_ire

Hi guys, first off thanks have having a look at this. I'm pretty much a noob at pc building so i apologise in advance for this.

I built my own computer last year, was my first time doing this and all went pretty much accordingly to plan. Today i tried to add another hard drive and since then i think Ive pretty much wrecked things.

If i explain what i did, hopefully you might be able to tell me how i can fix it (and feel free to laugh at me, I'm pretty sure i deserve it).

I bought a second hard drive, identical to the first one i had. I had read about Raid 0 and it being able to link the two hard drives together. I hooked all the cables up, turned on the computer and hoped they would link themselves.

When that didn't work i read about how to do this Raid 0. I'm using a MSI K8N Neo platinum motherboard so i had a read of the manual. I restarted the computer, went into the BIOS setup and "enabled" Raid, i again restarted then computer and pressed F10 to bring me into some sort of Raid control panel.

I saw the two hard drives and thought grand, i moved them over the right, and "finished". It came up however as the storage of only one of the hard drives being there. They are both 200GB drives, and i was only seeing something like 179GB. I restarted again and went back into this Raid control panel. At this stage i had realised i was meant to choose "stripping" and not "mirroring". So i went to delete the array. An option came up "Delete Data". I think this could have been my downfall. Reading the manual it said that i must choose yes if i had a previous array set up, so i didn't think it was actually deleting anything off the hard drive, merely clearing the array.

I did this and it came up as a storage of 374GB approx. So to me everything was looking find. Then i tried to boot the computer and it wouldn't load up. Since this stage, Ive tried various methods just to even load windows but nothing seems to be working.

So the question is, have i deleted my hard drive, ie. lost all my data? The original hard drive was full and i had important docs on it etc.

Like i said previously, i'm feeling like quite the tool over the whole thing cuz i didn't really research at all what i was doing and now i think i could have lost everything. The only thing keeping me sane was that i was under the impression that i would have to format the hard drive to clear all the data, and I'm positive i definitely have not formatted it.

Any response at all would be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Brian

slade_x

Yes, as soon as you raided both drives together you lost everything

There are program out there to recover some lost data off of an un-partitioned/Formatted drive but they cost a lot of money, if you do manage to get your hands on the software, you will have to unraid both drives and have the software scan the original disk on its own, as the software works differently with respect to single and raided volumes

Ontrack are one such company that offers such an opportunity
http://ontrack.com/

But you really have to ask yourself is the lost data worth 100's of €

the_syco

slade_x wrote:

But you really have to ask yourself is the lost data worth 100's of €

For a normal, non-raid setup, I've used @Active File Recovery. It costs about $55 to buy it, I think. Was able to recover data (word documents) off a HDD that was f*cked.

AnCapaillMor

Same happened to me a while back, however i was lucky in that it was my 2nd and 3rd hd that i put in the raid. SCSI it can be done with good raid cards, but for some reason the raid cards\hw on sata are sh!te, and so you can add drives and setup a raid. Tried a recovery as well to no use, lost 200GB of stuff.

Dempsey

slade_x wrote:

Yes, as soon as you raided both drives together you lost everything

I read the first paragraph and thought that and cringed. I think data recovery will be too stressful to do mate. Computers are so stressful when things aren't going right

brian_ire

Thanks guys, i had feared that everything was gone. Like i said, it all went in an instant which is what shocked me, i was sure that i would have to be formatting etc to really erase the stuff.

I'm going to have to have a look into this data recovery. It was the home computer, about 8 years of files, pics etc gone.

Suppose its all a learning process, even if its a very very painful one.

Thanks again

Brian

gamer

i see no point in setting up raid array unless you are in business and need to backup all data,daily,it would be easier just to have system restore switched on and set weekly restore point.
IF you look at computers forum here ,post , 19/2/this month , computer help needed asap ,post title , you will see i posted website adress to free download file recovery / hd recovery progs, try those.rEAD FAQ FIRST ,I DON,T know if those progs will work on data on 2 drive raid arrray , you wud be better off setting up mirrored arrray.Or just forget about raid ,for a few years,unless you a running a business pc system.

jayneemac

gamer wrote:

it would be easier just to have system restore switched on and set weekly restore point.

Please tell me your joking? windows system restore isn't worth sh!te!

brian_ire: If you are going to go down the recovery soft route, there are a couple of things to keep in mind.

1. leave the original hard drive alone for the time being, do not format or attempt to write to it in anyway...this is very important!

2. install the new hd into your machine & load windows xp as a fresh install (or whatever version you are using).

3. forget about raid btw.

4. install the recovery software.

5. attach your original hard disk as a slave device. IMPORTANT: again to not attempt to reformat the drive!

6. run the recovery software & point it to your original hard disk. depending on the program it may have options to recover files, recover partitions etc.

7. IMPORTANT: You will be asked for a location to recover the files to. Make sure you select a directory on the new disk which you installed the os. You cannot restore to the original disk because you could destroy any recoverable data.


I may have some links to proggies you can use, leave it with me and i'll get back to you.

all the best,
jayneemac

SouperComputer

I can take a look at the RAID set for you if you like, wont be mad expensive either. Drop me a PM

brian_ire

Hey guys, thanks again for the responses.

Jayneemac, i'm actually in the midde of the steps that you have given me. I installed windows on the new drive, hooked up the old one, and i'm inthe process of running a data recovery. I"m using "Recover My Files v3.91". It seems to be finding most of my files, but it's still early days. And i think i have to fork over a few euros to get the stuff back, but sure i probably deserve it!

Soupercomputer, i shall be in touch if i make a mess of the above!

Cheers

Brian

SwampThing

gamer, that's duff advice, dude.

There are several benefits to using RAID, depending on what you're using it for - RAID 0 for performance, RAID 1 and 5 for data security. It's no longer just a business technology.

By the sounds of things, you personally should be taking your own advice...

DemonOfTheFall

gamer you might like to read up and find out what RAID is before giving people advice about it.

SouperComputer

I put gamer on ignore a while back, so far the only one there!

SwampThing

SouperComputer wrote:

I put gamer on ignore a while back, so far the only one there!

...sound advice Souper.

Khannie

what's this ignore thing?

Edit: nvm, found it. Does it not mess up threads for you?

SouperComputer

Khannie wrote:

Edit: nvm, found it. Does it not mess up threads for you?

Its the lesser of two evils

SwampThing

SouperComputer wrote:

Its the lesser of two evils

you mean 'weavels', of course?

SouperComputer

SwampThing wrote:

you mean 'weavels', of course?

*scratches head*

SwampThing

SouperComputer wrote:

*scratches head*

...you haven't seen 'Master and Commander' then?