Recovery lost data after trying 2*120GB SATA in raid.

[SuperFreak]

Hi guys,

Dear expert guys here, please help recovering all my lost datas. Here is the symptome:

The exact same 2 Samsung SATA 120 GB ST3120026AS was fully working drives; having almost full of datas:

- Samsung SATA 120 GB HD 1. This was partitioned into 3 parts ( C:, D:, E: ) Windows XP on the first partition.
- Samsung SATA 120 GB HD 2. This one was just formatted as one partition ( F: ); filled about 50 GB data (MP3s) on it.

They were attached to Soltek NFR2 Motherboard's onboard FastTrak 376/378 RAID controller (all was OK), but when I bought a new Maxtor 200 GB SATA HD with a Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller PCI card, the system wasn't able to use the 3 HDs at the same. I mean I couldn't allow make all 3 disks available under WindowsXP. I still don't know what's the reason of this, but I tried to find out and I attached the Maxtor 200 GB HD onto the mainboard's FastTrak controller, and hooked the 2 identical model Samsung 120 GB HDs on the Silicon Image SiI 3112 SATARaid Controller PCI card (because unfortunatelly only this controller could load the OS from the HD 1).

I tried to set these 2 HDs in RAID stripe mode via the RAID controller's application (RAID Configuration Utility - Silicon Image Inc.) at boot-up, whether it allows to let the FastTrak controller load its Maxtor 200 GB HD - which was the main issue.

After this it seems like no data on these 2 Samsung HDs. Can't boot from C: anymore. None of the 2 disks has any data ATM. 'Computer Management' says to 'HD 2' (with partition F: on it), as I can see in another desktop using the same SiI 3112 SATARaid controller PCI card:

Disk: Disk1
Type: Unknown
Status: Not Initialized
Partition style: Not Applicable
Reserved space: 0 MB
'Unallocated'

My question is What happened? Do I still have got my valuable datas?
How can I make forcing the SATA controller to look again these 2 HDs?

Thank you for all the help you can make.

Best Regards, Cheers

[Foggy]

When you create a raid array you lose all data

[SuperFreak]

I hope this is not the case, as I didn't formatted or installed anything into these HD drives, as I created the RAID stuff. So the datas must be there, at least I hope so...

[sechs]

Foggy is correct. If you make a stripe array, you usually obliterate the existing data on each drive.

[SuperFreak]

Thanx for the help, but you might wrong guys.

I installed a program, called 'Active@Undelete Demo', and after running an 'Advanced Scan' it can see the approx. 50 GB on the 'Samsung HD 2' ('HD 1' didn't try yet). All of my files/folders on this disk are clearly visible, only the Demo limitations can't allow me to recover the whole stuff.
But I'm still hoping that it's only the Master Boot Record, the Partition Table(s) or the Boot Sectors is damaged. Repairing the right one should be help.

Now i'm sure my datas are still on the HDs...
Anyone has any idea for easy recovering?

[sechs]

Good luck. Since the controller should have written a header at the beginning of each stripe, there isn't going to be a lot of retreivable information.

[BipolarBill]

Thsi thread is 5 years old, dude. Besides, you shouldn't be pushing warez.

Reported.