Data Recovery Forums - Help & Discussions

henryhobson · Joined: 09 Feb 2011 Posts: 1

I've made a big mistake.

I had my pc set up RAID 0 using the Nvraid drivers on an ABIT KN9 motherboard, which can be found here:

http://www.abit.com....PRODINFO=Driver

I was using windows xp.

I have 2 identical seagate 250gb phyiscal drives set up as 1 logical drive, showing at 465.77 Gb.

Everything was fine until I tried to upgrade motherboard and processor.

I was upgrading to a Asrock M3A UCC AMD 480X Socket AM3 Motherboard. I plugged everything in and followed the instrutions for setting up the raid system in the bios. As a part of this, it involved ERASING THE MBR which I did, stupidly and unthinkingly. Looking back, the instructions seem to be about setting up a new raid system from scratch, not really what I wanted to do. So, I stopped what I was doing before any formatting started or anything stupid like that. I suddenly realised that there was a lot of data on the drives that I didn't want to lose (and I hadn't backed up - lesson learned...again :/), and decided the best way forwards was probably to go back to the old mobo, try to get it to load, and back up what I needed to my eternal HD, then I could go ahead with my upgrade and if that involved wiping the disks and reloading xp then so be it, no problem.

Now I am in trouble becuse when I try to boot up the system, I get a "no boot disk" type of error.

So, having done a bit of googling, I realised that I probably need to use the xp recovery console to "fixmbr".

Here is where it gets wierd. On in the BIOS I an see my NVIDIA STRIPE 465.77 Gb RAID 0 Array. Good.
I can even look at the array (listed as "healthy", and the separate physial drives in the MediaShield raid management software (by nVidia). Great.

Now, when I try to use the recovery console to "fixmbr" I get the "Setup cannot detect hard drives - try installing manufaturer drivers from floppy" error. This is odd because, as I said, I an see the array in the BIOS and in Mediashield. Of course, I have the NVRAID driver floppy to hand and when I try using that (after pressing f6 in the xp setup program) it loads the nforce raid and sata storage drivers, then when I hit R for reovery onsole it does not give me a "choose your windows installation to fix" option, instead it says "invalid command line or location" and gives me a c:\ command prompt where I can't do anything, and fixmbr goes through some weird motions on a drive that doesn't exist before telling me to reboot, and I'm back to square 1.

Its a dead end there for me, I simply do not know what else to try. I have 1GB of holiday photos locked on those drives which will not load and they are very high in sentimental value. If anyone can think how I can boot these or even just get those photos off, I would be sincerely grateful.

Edit: The shorthand for this whole post, really is, "Why can xp recovery not see my array, when its visible in the BIOS and in Mediashield?"

emily peterson · Guest

if it can help you, then you can check for data salvage services for your problem as they solved my problem quickly in a short time. may this can be help ful for you too.

mickyjohn · Guest

Well just follow the tips which has been posted below:
1. Regular Maintenance - While RAID components are usually reliable, it is recommended that regular back ups are performed at set intervals. There is always the chance that such systems will have logical and continuity problems. For this, you may want to employ special software to maintain the integrity of your RAID configuration.

2. Know Your Problem - It may take a little training to know the difference, but many of the RAID problems can be solved by using readily available RAID data recovery tools. If in the event that such software does not work, then you may consider the services of a professional data recovery expert.

These experts are highly-trained and employ equipment not readily available to most people to recover badly damaged disks, and hopeless media.

3. If Possible, Use Software RAID instead of Hardware RAID - while software RAID is a viable alternative to hardware RAID. Software RAID has a few practical setbacks.