Need help recovering RAID0 array

[CrashGawker]

I've got a pair of 250GB Hitachi Deskstar SATA hard drives that I had in a striped array using the Promise onboard raid array on my old Chaintech Zenith Ultra motherboard that died last year. I recently finished my new computer and dropped the drives into it on the Asus K8N-e Deluxe's Silicon Image RAID array and rebuilt the array thinking it would rebuild the array around the data like the promise did. When I went to windows to see if the drives showed up, it didn't so I went to disc management and reinitialized and partitioned it.

I know that I probably really screwed up but since at no time would I let ANYTHING format the drives I have to hope there is SOME way of recovering my data still. I'm currently using Raid Reconstructor by Runtime to "rebuild" my raid array into a series of image files that supposedly will be compatible with Runtime's GetDataBack and in theory I should be able to get everything back...however the image creation process is taking AGES due to the size of the drive space involved and I was wondering if anyone knew for sure wether I will be successful or if anyone had other suggestions for retrieving my data. I'm sure some of the data could be replaced but I'm not holding my breathe so I hope that I can indeed retrieve my data unharmed. I'm becoming dissillusioned with RAID on the whole I think...seems it should be more intercompatible with different manufacturers using the same standard

 

[dirtydr]

Portability is one of the downsides of an array as you've discovered. Another option would be to grab a pci promise controller that uses the same chipset and try plugging the drives in. If it works, and that is a huge if, this route would save you some money ($200 worth of recovery software vs $70-80 for a controller). In theory a person could take the controller back after recovering so it could cost as little as gas money and time though I wouldnt personally go that route. Otherwise a destriper & recovery app is about your only option.

 

[CrashGawker]

That makes me feel a lot better actually...I'm destriping using Rutimes RAID tool and I have their recovery tool waiting in the wings for the destriping to finish. The only thing that worries ME is that I redid the array and I'm not sure if I'm getting off the data or if I'm filling up my hard drive space with drive image segments of blank space. Would the destriper image a full amount of space or is it more likely to image only data? I don't have enough room on a single drive to fit the full size of the array due to it being a pair of 250s but because the drives have been out of circulation for several months I can't recall how full they were.

 

[RyanVM]

I personally had great results with File Scavenger 3.0 after my RAID10 array tanked on me last summer

 

[CrashGawker]

Thanks Ryan I'll look into that one. These runtimes are kinda wonky IMO because they take forever to run and I can't even tell if they are going to allow me to recover my stuff or if they are just spinning their wheels for 11 hours. I'm just not all that patient I guess...and I don't have 466GB of free hard drive space on a single drive to let the stupid thing run itself out without me there to tell it every single time to go to another drive once the first is full (bad planning on Runtime's part)