Raid 0 reconstruct

[Cindee]

Situation - To make a short story long, I had an Asus P4C800-E motherboard with a Raid 0 setup. After about two years the board quit working. RMA’d Asus and was sent a new board. Reconnected the drives and was back in business. About two years latter – repeat - board quit working, only now the board is out of production and not under warranty. Hoping to recover the raid setup I purchased a new Asus board but different model. However, the new board did not recognize the Raid setup this time. Next I purchased a raid controller from the same manufacture as the one on the board and close too it, but again with no luck. After searching the web I’ve learned a little about raid recovery and this should be cakewalk as the drives have never been overwritten and never really failed.

Problem –I don’t know how to do it. I believe the only hope is to retrieve the original raid setup from the drives the rewrite it back to them after re-initializing them. I’m just not sure exactly how to do it. Of course, one final note, all my important data I kept on a non-raid drive and so what’s left is not worth spending money on. It would be nice to retrieve it however. Am looking for someone to hold my hand through the process.

[Synthohol]

you can still get another board :)
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=P4C800-E&category0=
:welcome:

[Cindee]

Yes, I know. They sell for more than I bought it new on eBay. One sold for over $400.00. I don't want to waste money on a used one only to have it fail again. For that kind of money I have already purchased a new board and better proccessor. I'd just like a chance to retrieve the data on the disks before reformating them

[Synthohol]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Asus-SK8N-Mhotherboard-Great-Condition_W0QQitemZ150202521739QQihZ005QQcategoryZ 1244QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
if you used the promise raid controller, here is a board that used the same. better chance of recovery anyway.

where is KODE or SPTW when you need them :)

[Cindee]

Thanks anyway Synthohol, but unfortunately for me the SK8N board uses an AMD processor which I would also have to buy not to mention memory. I just need to learn how to image the boot sector and restore it to the drives. I have been researching it but just need a little more guidance.

[Cindee]

I was using the Promise Raid too.

[KODE]

Hi Cindee,

First of all :welcome: :)

I think you´re missing the matching RAID drivers. I would try the following:

1- Put your new RAID controller drivers on a floppy.
2- Rebuild your ARRAY in the RAID BIOS.
3- Repair your Operating System, bust most important: press F6 while loading the CD to install the RAID drivers when prompted.

P.S If your have doubts on how to perform step 3, please let me know so I can do a more detailed guide for you.

This is a long shot, but I think It´s worth trying.

Regards,

KODE.

[KODE]

Nevermind :)

[Player0]

Never had any luck transferring RAID arrays from one controller to another. Even from different variants from the same brand such as Intel, Promise, or Highpoint I've had issues.

You're not trying to recover the RAID array, you're trying to convert it. I don't know of any utilities that do it. The P4C800 has the Fasttrack S150 SX4 chip it seems. I have one still running in my other room actually.

Anyway, if you can find a RAID controller card with the S150 SX4 chip on it (PDC20378) you'll probably be able to start right up. You may still have to do some recovery depending on how many changes have been applied to these drives by connecting them to other controllers.

The S150 TX4 controller may work with this array as well. But get the SX4 controller to be sure.

[Cindee]

Player0, I’m not sure if I’m trying to recover it, or convert it. Either way, I’m trying to access the disks again. I recently used a combo undelete/raidrecover program that accessed the drives and restored one or two files but most were corrupt. Ones I knew were good before the board went bad. For exmp. Adobe could not read any of the pdf files, jpgs could not be viewed. I have never re-initialized the drives or reset the raid in order to preserve the structure.

Anyway, the P4C800-E Dlx uses the promise fasttrak S150 PDC20378 chip, the S150 SX4 uses the PDC20621 and the card I purchased which is the S150 tx2 plus uses the PCD20371. I choose the TX2 because it uses the same driver as the 20378 but, still no luck. I'm agreeing with you “never had much success transferring RAID arrays.”

I may just keep trying undelete programs. As stated in the beginning, all my important stuff I kept backed up and what I didn’t I can re-download.
It’s just there were a lot of downloads

[Cindee]

Sometimes I can be so dumb!!!

I never just did a PDC20378 search on eBay. Bingo!!! I found a controller card with the same chip on it for less then $20. Now with a little luck all I’ll need to do is plug the drives in and be done with it.

I’ll post the out come.

[Synthohol]

Good luck!

[DCMan]

Hope it works ok for you! :)