HDD help

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sen8or

1000 posts

Ultimate Geek

#91672 18-Oct-2011 20:36

Hi, I hope this is the right place to ask this, if not, please feel free to move to the appropriate area.

My PC at home died, it was 2 x 320gb hdds set up as raid 0, the power supply, motherboard and most likely the cpu is toast after a power surge.

Is there any software I can use to get at the data that is on the HDDs?

As far as I know, they were SATA2
The motherboard was a Gigabyte core2duo motherboard, can't find the exact number at the moment, using the packaged raid controller.

Most of what I need is backed up via norton360 to an external hdd and I have 99% of what I need, but the 1% is missing and is rather important (myob payroll zip files that are missing from the backups).

Is there anyway to emulate the raid environment and get at the data?

Thanks in advance
Sen

Regs

4062 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Snowflake

#534949 18-Oct-2011 20:45

your best bet is to find a computer with an identical motherboard and attach them.

raid-0 is really dangerous, for exactly this reason...

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Mark

1551 posts

Uber Geek

#535054 19-Oct-2011 09:37

First up get a friend to slp you for being silly and using RAID-0 with important data! :-)

You might be lucky and be able to find the same motherboard (or motherboard with the same chipset) and have it discover the existing "RAID" set ... don't try and create a new RAID-0 though if it asks, that'll probably just blitz everything!

Or you can try some of the tools from http://www.runtime.org I've heard they can work .. they are free for the discovery phase, but if you want to actually get your data you pay ... fair enough, means you can at least see if it can recover anything.

Or you can pay $$ to an NZ data recovery place, those guys are all pretty good and should get it back for you, for a price.

Have fun ... and never EVER use RAID-0 :-)

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#535278 19-Oct-2011 17:49

yes OK there is an inherent risk to using RAID0 ie: should 1 disk fail you'll loose everything and there's no error correction/parity
but it's been my own experience that RAID0 is fine to use infact up until a couple of months ago I had been using the same 2x250GB WD2500AAJS HDD's in RAID0 for 5 years non stop without problem..
So people please stop thinking about RAID0 as if you were back in days of 18GB 10krpm scsi that failed mainly due to overheating because desktop HDD's built by the like of WD, Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung in the last 6~7yrs are far more reliable now than they used to be

@ OP
now there are only two ways to get your DATA back
1: find a motherboard the same as yours and hook up your two HDD's (that's if the spike didn't kill your HDD's aswell)
2: Professional DATA recovery services (works either way if working or not but will probably cost more than the DATA recovered is worth)

Mark

1551 posts

Uber Geek

#535298 19-Oct-2011 18:40

Athlonite: yes OK there is an inherent risk to using RAID0 ie: should 1 disk fail you'll loose everything and there's no error correction/parity
but it's been my own experience that RAID0 is fine to use infact up until a couple of months ago I had been using the same 2x250GB WD2500AAJS HDD's in RAID0 for 5 years non stop without problem..
So people please stop thinking about RAID0 as if you were back in days of 18GB 10krpm scsi that failed mainly due to overheating because desktop HDD's built by the like of WD, Seagate, Hitachi, Samsung in the last 6~7yrs are far more reliable now than they used to be

Oooh, ouch .. errr... anyone reading that I'd suggest ignoring that advise above .. just DON'T use RAID-0 ... unless it is for scratch space, temp files, video render temp space, anything temp that if it goes does;t crash your system or leave you hunting for backups.

Hard disks are probably more reliable these days, but they are still mechanical spinning things! And even solid state drives can just decide to die due to power spikes, I've no idea how those get recovered at all short of breaking out a soldering iron and sucking the contents out of every NAND chip after you;ve removed them and then working with the manufacturer to work out how the controller places data .. basically I think you have to have magic powers and brain the size of a house!

I'll take my "storage" hat off now and put back in my bag for work tomorrow :-)

And don't use RAID-0 ... bad for your data!

Regs

4062 posts

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Snowflake

#535347 19-Oct-2011 21:21

i've seen a lot more failures in consumer drives lately, than i saw 5 years ago. higher capacities, faster spin rates etc all add up to too much risk.

if you really really really think you need raid-0 for performance, at least also throw in a $99 1TB disk and an autoscript, or drive mirror, to back up those important files. or get an online backup solution.

better still, if you're looking for performance, get an SSD - but do still get that $99 disk or online backup solution!

Sales Engineer
Snowflake
www.snowflake.com

about.me/nzregs
Twitter: @nzregs

Athlonite

1828 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#535356 19-Oct-2011 21:51

@ Regs yes probably should of added that to my post always make sure to back up your important files regularly

@ Mark screw you I'm sick and tired of hearing people poo hoo RAID 0 like it's the plague if it was that bad motherboard maunfacturers would only allow you to use RAID 0+1 minimum I'm not talking about RAID 0 in a server farms you'd be silly to use it there, But for home users that don't want or can't afford an SSD then RAID 0 is a good option as long as you realize there is inherent oportunity to loose everything should one disk fail, for me anything that's on my RAID 0 array is not important that's all kept somewhere else

Mark

1551 posts

Uber Geek

#535376 19-Oct-2011 23:04

Athlonite:

@ Mark screw you I'm sick and tired of hearing people poo hoo RAID 0 like it's the plague if it was that bad motherboard maunfacturers would only allow you to use RAID 0+1 minimum I'm not talking about RAID 0 in a server farms you'd be silly to use it there, But for home users that don't want or can't afford an SSD then RAID 0 is a good option as long as you realize there is inherent oportunity to loose everything should one disk fail, for me anything that's on my RAID 0 array is not important that's all kept somewhere else

Wow! Someone needs to get laid desperately! When did you last get any ? You sound so wound up!

I just wanted to warn people with a slightly less blasé attitude to their personal files (irreplaceable stuff like family photos and what not) that your suggestion of RAID-0 for home use is not the best idea of the day.

The reason you get "RAID-0" as an option on motherboards is because it's really easy to implement as a feature .. the same reason you also get RAID-1 as an option as that is also easy to implement, and they also expect people to head the warnings they put in the manual about it. Yes it makes your disks look like a big fat disk, but at a cost you cannot predict and do not want if it comes time to cash it in.

But hey, I've only been in the storage biz for 15 years, what could I possibly know about such things ?

Have a nice night ... maybe you should Google some nice ladies (or guys) to come and de-stress you ?

Regards!