Dynamic W7 Raid 0 array crashed

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tradbourne

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This is nobody's fault but my own. Graphics workstation that backs up to a server has crashed. Boot disk is fine and W7 will boot, but the dynamic disk array keeps windows from starting if connected.

Computer will not boot up with 2 disk RAID 0 array connected to the motherboard. Once I unhook one of the drives it will boot up. System is backed up except for 1 month of images that are worth $500- $1000 to us. I would like to get these files off the failed array. Recommendations anyone???

I have a set of WD 1TB 10EADS drives set up with Windows 7 64 bit into a dynamic RAID 0 Array for photo editing. This is faster than a single 2TB disk, and I have 6 of these workstations. The data is all backed up daily to a server so I should be OK even if a drive fails as long as the backups are working. Yep, I hadn't been checking the backups, and I have about a month that isn't backed up. (Spanking myself with a wet noodle)

I am willing to invest in a data recovery service. Who should I consider?
 
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DTI Data is proposing an "image only" option for the bad drive. Just send them a 2nd drive and they will image the data onto the new drive. Once the newly imaged drive is reinstalled, Win7 should recognize it and the data should come back. Price $700 for this. Other options start at $1000 and could well run to $4000.

Does this seem reasonable, and how big a risk am I taking? If the cost goes to several thousand, we are marginally over our cost of just re-creating the data.

Are there any other options available that will be cost effective and have a high probability of success?
 
Did you test the drives to know what went wrong ?

If I were to use a professional service I would want them to have both members of the array and really recover the data, what they're proposing doesn't inspire me at all.
 
I haven't touched the drive yet, other than to change SATA cables, MB SATA ports, and power cables, just in case it was something simple.

I don't want to jeapordize my chances of recovery by messing up the drives. However, if there is a simple path forward, I would be willing to try it. The data is only worth $1,000-2,000. All but 50 gb are backed up, and even that is partially backed up.
 
Trying booting up the machine with the data cable of 1 drive disconnected. Leave the power cables plugged in. When the machine boots then plug in the data cable for the drive. Open disk management and go to "action, rescan disks". See if that works.
 
Sorry to hear about your predicament. First thing I usually do in such cases is run something like clonezilla to make images of the drives using 'dd' so that one recovery attempt won't mess up the drives even worse.
I was hoping a simple comp. crash is not enough to disrupt a windows software raid. Can this be avoided by turning on the buffer flushing in the disks' properties in devmgmt?
 
rive22 said:
Trying booting up the machine with the data cable of 1 drive disconnected. Leave the power cables plugged in. When the machine boots then plug in the data cable for the drive. Open disk management and go to "action, rescan disks". See if that works.
Click to expand...

Unbelievable, that worked. It even came up without needing to rescan disks. It shows that disk as "at risk" and complains about errors, but at least it mounted, and its being backed up as we speak. I'll get it imaged and replaced and perhaps we are good to go???
 
michalrz said:
Sorry to hear about your predicament. First thing I usually do in such cases is run something like clonezilla to make images of the drives using 'dd' so that one recovery attempt won't mess up the drives even worse.
I was hoping a simple comp. crash is not enough to disrupt a windows software raid. Can this be avoided by turning on the buffer flushing in the disks' properties in devmgmt?
Click to expand...

Do you think clonezilla will make a workable clone? Never used it before.

Don't think this is a simple computer crash. Likely impending HD failure. What I would like is to have a dashboard that gives pre-warning of impending HD failure. Windows isn't so capable that way.
 
Clonezilla has a few modes of operation, and one of those is using the 'dd' tool which afaik does a bit by bit copy, so even deleted (but not overwritten) stuff would get included. One day I'll get around to actually testing this scenario ...
HDD Guardian could monitor smart data constantly, display alerts when a critical pre-fail value changes, etc. check it out maybe. I tried it once but had some permissions issue (running it as a limited user in Win7), but, again, it's probably resolvable for anyone who's not trying to do everything at once all the time.
 
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