PLEASE HELP ! Enabling RAID = Vanishing Data

PapillonIrl

PapillonIrl

New member
Ok I recently got a new system with 2 SATA drives.

I had been meaning to configure the in a RAID mirrored effort, but just ot around to it today.

One drive was empty, the other had about 35GB of project data on it.

Stupidly I enabled RAID for both SATA drives in the BIOS without first backing up...(last backup was a couple days ago)... Windows then saw one drive...empty...

I then reversed the process in the BIOS, and Windows now sees two drives...both empty...

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

It tells me that one drive has 148GB free and one has 111GB free...which is correct...but it cannot see the files.

PLEASE somebody tell me what enabling RAID has done to the file system/drive, and how to reverse it ?

Had to cancel a vocal session today and I'm shitting myself about losing a days work for a band that have a pretty tight schedule...


Nathan
 
Likely you have changed the file structure by enabling RAID.
You may be able to retrieve the data with some file recovery software provided you haven't done any type of secure drive format.
If not, it's a good possibility you may be able to recover the lost data.
Wost case, you can chalk it up as a learning experience.

Good luck with it.
 
wish i had some good news for you, but i don't.....

PapillonIrl said:
Ok I recently got a new system with 2 SATA drives.

I had been meaning to configure the in a RAID mirrored effort, but just ot around to it today.

One drive was empty, the other had about 35GB of project data on it.

Stupidly I enabled RAID for both SATA drives in the BIOS without first backing up...(last backup was a couple days ago)... Windows then saw one drive...empty...

I then reversed the process in the BIOS, and Windows now sees two drives...both empty...

:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:

It tells me that one drive has 148GB free and one has 111GB free...which is correct...but it cannot see the files.

PLEASE somebody tell me what enabling RAID has done to the file system/drive, and how to reverse it ?

Had to cancel a vocal session today and I'm shitting myself about losing a days work for a band that have a pretty tight schedule...


Nathan
Click to expand...


you have broken new ground in fuckupedness! congrats, in 35 years this is the first time i have run into this. the raid part is controlled by a chip, and logic emgeded on the chip and in the bios. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MICROSOFT! this is hardware raid with a little firmware thrown in. that is how they can say it is also compatible with linux, cause it is all hidden from the os. the os just 'sees' one drive. all the mirroring or striping is done by the raid chip and firmware.

i'll take a wild assed guess and say the firmware has relocated or rewritten a new directory that is empty, while zeroing out the other directory. your data is probably still there IF YOU DID NOT ATTEMPT TO WRITE TO EITHER "empty" DISK! don't install or write to either drive under any conditions if you have not done so. get norton and follow the instructions to try to recover the drive.

you might get ahold of the motherboard maker, they may be able to tell you what might work and what happened, if they speak your language (not racial and not a joke)

good luck and keep us posted
 
Rstiltskin said:
you have broken new ground in fuckupedness! congrats, in 35 years this is the first time i have run into this. the raid part is controlled by a chip, and logic emgeded on the chip and in the bios. THIS HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH MICROSOFT! this is hardware raid with a little firmware thrown in. that is how they can say it is also compatible with linux, cause it is all hidden from the os. the os just 'sees' one drive. all the mirroring or striping is done by the raid chip and firmware.

i'll take a wild assed guess and say the firmware has relocated or rewritten a new directory that is empty, while zeroing out the other directory. your data is probably still there IF YOU DID NOT ATTEMPT TO WRITE TO EITHER "empty" DISK! don't install or write to either drive under any conditions if you have not done so. get norton and follow the instructions to try to recover the drive.

you might get ahold of the motherboard maker, they may be able to tell you what might work and what happened, if they speak your language (not racial and not a joke)

good luck and keep us posted
Click to expand...


I didn't (and wouldn't) attempt to write to a disk that I was trying to recover data from

MS did though, the next time I booted the machine (after breaking the RAID mirror) CHKDSK attempted to fix and everything (in my uneducated opinion) wrote over my data without asking for permission.

All I know is that now the drive in question says it's 100% empty instead of 63% empty, and the guy who built the pc ( Scott Reams www.liquiddaw.com - good guy ) has spent 3-4 hours of remote assistance time only to recover everything except the most recent directory.

*bites fist*
 
Ireland has a wonderfully educated workforce, great beer,...

PapillonIrl said:
BTW It's a nVidia4 MB I think. With SATA RAID etc.
Click to expand...

most excellent women, fabulous country. oh, great voices and talented musicians.

Chkdsk usually compares starts and stops of file clusters and correspondance to fat. broken chains and whatnot. I would not expect chkdsk to do much but mark the directory empty, i don't know if it would do anything to your data that a file recovery could not find. if chkdsk found a broken chain and truncated the file at that point(and it can do that), it could get ugly (ie-you are fucked).

i am in no way saying you should have intuited this could happen. These bios/firmware/chip raid solutions are very capable but not very well implemented from a human factors sense. The bios has a limited space and the firmware is often (always) implemented by techies, and they forget that they did not crawl out from under a rock knowing all they know now. they forget they had to learn. The bio, with it taking up less than 1k could say:

checklist for implementing mirror:
1. backup your data
2. does one or more of the drives already contain data?
3. read www.whatthefucktodo.com on our website.

of you have not done this before, how could you know. all this shit is on the motherboard and you rarely get the motherboard manual passed on to the end user (the techs in the shop grab them--a. they want them and b. they don't want you to get in there screwing around)

i have known people to get into the bios and change something and the system won't boot at all till the bios is flashed again. this is such a common problem some mb makers advertise a 'fail safe bios' or a dual bios, that will reflash itself.

I don't think this is your 'fault', and that won't help a damn thing now.
best of luck. sounds like you have a good vendor. my time is a minimum of 65.00 dollars us per hour.

please let me know what happens.
 
I use OnTrack Data Recovery at work. Its not cheap. But I think they have a limited use License thats cheaper. That software works great. It can recover raw data and damaged files and floppies. even formated hard drives. I guess the question is how much your files are worth to you.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top