RAID 0 - Disk Failure or Mobo Controller Failure

**dmwarmock** · September 19th, 2004, 02:34 PM

Suddenly win XP won't boot up as it says it can't see the windows directory (Prompts to repair using option r on the Win install disk). Trying to reinstall the OS the setup program tells me the partition is corrupt or damaged and prompts for a reformat

. I am loth to do this as I really need my data (Now how sad is it that two days ago I bought a noce new external HDD to do a backup this weekend - and the thing fails the day before! Grr).

The disk lights come on and there are no peculiar sounds but I wonder if one of the them has gone, or whether the MOBO disk controller has failed. I am thinking about the cheapest way to eliminate the problem before I send the disks off to a data recovery specialist.

Any ideas anyone?

**John Prophet** · September 19th, 2004, 03:10 PM

Welcome to the forum!

you could TRY booting from the xp cd and pressing (R) on the first screen...which gets you into the recovery console

then try typing in "fixmbr" without the quotes of course

but I dotn know if that would do anything for this particular problem...you might could also try 'fixboot'

another longshot might be to try the drive on the secondary ide controller in case the primary controller is bad

you could try taking a spare drive and installing xp on it then seeing if you could use it to read the data off of the first drive (put the first drive on the secondary controller etc)

or try taking your drive to another xp machien and see if u can get the data off that way

I am not superfamiliar with "chkdsk" but maybe u could run chkdsk /r http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...us/chkdsk.mspx

Now I see u mention RAID....is this a raid array? raid 0 or raid 1?

if its raid 0 and a drive died I think u can kiss the data goodbye (wel, maybe a recovery company can get it etc)

JP

**sechs** · September 19th, 2004, 11:44 PM

There's nothing wrong with the master boot record, as Windows starts to boot.

I'd say that you file system or partition is corrupt. You can try booting into the recovery console and accessing the data and running a chkdsk.

If you think that there's something wrong with the disks, you should put them on a normal ATA controler and run the manufacturer's diagnostics.

**dmwarmock** · September 22nd, 2004, 03:33 PM

Originally Posted by sechs

There's nothing wrong with the master boot record, as Windows starts to boot.

I'd say that you file system or partition is corrupt. You can try booting into the recovery console and accessing the data and running a chkdsk.

If you think that there's something wrong with the disks, you should put them on a normal ATA controler and run the manufacturer's diagnostics.

Hmm, chkdsk reports that there are unrecoverable problems on the disk. GUess I have a disk failure of some kind. I think I'll call a data recovery company and get a quote on it first....choke.....

**sechs** · September 22nd, 2004, 08:01 PM

It's possible that the file system is hopelessly mangled and can't be fixed. It's also possible that you've developed bad sectors in important spots, but that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the drive. This is why I sugest running the manufacturer's diagnostics first.

If the drive is good and the file system is bad, you can use software to attempt to recover your data, saving a good deal of money.

**mazdarx7-64** · September 22nd, 2004, 08:03 PM

Whay RAID controler are you using, I have run across several gigabyte boards with bad raid controlers on them.

**dmwarmock** · October 5th, 2004, 02:49 PM

Originally Posted by mazdarx7-64

Whay RAID controler are you using, I have run across several gigabyte boards with bad raid controlers on them.

Its a promise - built into a MSI KT3 Ultra ARU socket A board.

**dmwarmock** · October 5th, 2004, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by sechs

It's possible that the file system is hopelessly mangled and can't be fixed. It's also possible that you've developed bad sectors in important spots, but that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with the drive. This is why I sugest running the manufacturer's diagnostics first.

If the drive is good and the file system is bad, you can use software to attempt to recover your data, saving a good deal of money.

Thanks for the tip. Hmmm, I finally dug out a functioning old PC and connected up the disks to an ATA100 controller (the disks are UDMA 133). The Maxtor Advanced diagnostic shows no problem with either disk, and has certified both error free.

Next step I guess is to try and get the data off and then de-stripe it. Can you recommend good software for either/both purposes?

Thinking about the cheapest option here - I guess I need a big enough hard disk to copy the images to which means it has to be 160GB minimum. I guess I can always reuse the disk in my new PC, and it looks like I could even salvage the ones I can't access.

**sechs** · October 5th, 2004, 07:41 PM

I use R-Studio, but there are other tools out there which should be able to recover your data.

Most have demos which will show what they can recovery before you buy.