Feck Killed my RAID 0, and accidentally formatted my backup HD
06 August 2009, 11:36 AM
#1
**** Killed my RAID 0, and accidentally formatted my backup HD
Damn, ****, damn, ****, damn, damn *****, b****ks.
I backed everything yesturday on the backup HD, then me in my infinte wizdom used said drive in another system and reformatted and reinstalled an OS on it, forgetting it was the most recent back up.
During this I swapped the CPU on my main (RAID 0) machine. It booting into Vista ok, but the BIOS didn't properly support it (incorrect CPU speeds etc), so I flashed the BIOS with the latest version. Cool fixed the CPU issue, now won't boot. Ahh BIOS setting are all defaulted and the RAID was disabled, so re-enabed it. Rebooted and now it says RAID "Failed" on the ICH10, and no hardware option in the menu to recover it. Then it dawned on me that I just wiped my most recent and complete backup. Noooooooo.
Yeah, enough self pity, I fecked up.
Now to get it back (photos, personal data, emails you name it): I have three options:
1: Assuming its the controller at fault( from the BIOS flash/reset). Use my old motherboard: The array was initialised and setup on this board before being swapped to the new mobo some 8 months ago. In theory it should treat the array just like it did before and read it ok. There is still a Win XP partition that has been left untouched from that mobo swap, so it should boot into that (its a dual boot OS).
2: Recover said array using some sort of software tool: Thats where I need help in reccomendations of some good RAID 0 recovery tools. (at this point I can't remember the stripe sizes etc).
3: Send the lot off to a firm to sort (I'd rather not).
4: Give up, and try and piece together data from what I have from other sources (about 60% of what I've lost)
Bit of advice would come in handy especially with option 2.
Please?
I backed everything yesturday on the backup HD, then me in my infinte wizdom used said drive in another system and reformatted and reinstalled an OS on it, forgetting it was the most recent back up.
During this I swapped the CPU on my main (RAID 0) machine. It booting into Vista ok, but the BIOS didn't properly support it (incorrect CPU speeds etc), so I flashed the BIOS with the latest version. Cool fixed the CPU issue, now won't boot. Ahh BIOS setting are all defaulted and the RAID was disabled, so re-enabed it. Rebooted and now it says RAID "Failed" on the ICH10, and no hardware option in the menu to recover it. Then it dawned on me that I just wiped my most recent and complete backup. Noooooooo.
Yeah, enough self pity, I fecked up.
Now to get it back (photos, personal data, emails you name it): I have three options:
1: Assuming its the controller at fault( from the BIOS flash/reset). Use my old motherboard: The array was initialised and setup on this board before being swapped to the new mobo some 8 months ago. In theory it should treat the array just like it did before and read it ok. There is still a Win XP partition that has been left untouched from that mobo swap, so it should boot into that (its a dual boot OS).
2: Recover said array using some sort of software tool: Thats where I need help in reccomendations of some good RAID 0 recovery tools. (at this point I can't remember the stripe sizes etc).
3: Send the lot off to a firm to sort (I'd rather not).
4: Give up, and try and piece together data from what I have from other sources (about 60% of what I've lost)
Bit of advice would come in handy especially with option 2.
Please?
06 August 2009, 01:04 PM
#2
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if it was data i wanted, i wouldn't fvck around. connect up the drives to the working machine/controller.
back the data up again!
then sit and think about hardware/software configs/new machine/etc
back the data up again!
then sit and think about hardware/software configs/new machine/etc
06 August 2009, 01:30 PM
#3
Yup thats what I'm doing now. Hopefully the MBR is still intact.
The only reason why I'm in this mess was I got complacent and din't engage my barin - I have a new HD sat here ready to go in to take over from the old (noisy) backup drive, and I haven't done a DVD archive for almost a year.
In the process of putting the old backup drive in a new machine, in haste I reformatted it, forgetting I needed to copy everything off it onto the new backup HD...Typically, it was after that when I then killed the RAID array
Still, I'll would do with some pointers/tools on rebuilding the MBR if its found to be corrupted. Found some websites, but its quite intense reading.
The only reason why I'm in this mess was I got complacent and din't engage my barin - I have a new HD sat here ready to go in to take over from the old (noisy) backup drive, and I haven't done a DVD archive for almost a year.
In the process of putting the old backup drive in a new machine, in haste I reformatted it, forgetting I needed to copy everything off it onto the new backup HD...Typically, it was after that when I then killed the RAID array
Still, I'll would do with some pointers/tools on rebuilding the MBR if its found to be corrupted. Found some websites, but its quite intense reading.
06 August 2009, 03:17 PM
#6
Ouch indeed.
After some reading up it seems that the ICH7/8/9/10 has a habit of "forgetting" a drive is a Raid-Array member when the BIOS is messed with (Regardless of RAID mode). I have one drive showing as a "RAID member", and the other as a "non-Raid member". Somehow the ICH has "marked" said drive so my old mobo sees it as a non-Raid too.
I have a choice now:
Buy this: RAID Reconstructor - Recover Data from a Broken RAID Array and see if it'll de-stripe it all. $99 owch (any alternatives?).
Or
Get the system booting on a non-raid drive, see if Intel storage manager console gives me any options and try some tricks I've read on some other forums (tread cautiously).
After some reading up it seems that the ICH7/8/9/10 has a habit of "forgetting" a drive is a Raid-Array member when the BIOS is messed with (Regardless of RAID mode). I have one drive showing as a "RAID member", and the other as a "non-Raid member". Somehow the ICH has "marked" said drive so my old mobo sees it as a non-Raid too.
I have a choice now:
Buy this: RAID Reconstructor - Recover Data from a Broken RAID Array and see if it'll de-stripe it all. $99 owch (any alternatives?).
Or
Get the system booting on a non-raid drive, see if Intel storage manager console gives me any options and try some tricks I've read on some other forums (tread cautiously).
06 August 2009, 04:45 PM
#7
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err, i've managed to accidentally rewire my sata leads on my array and the ICH9R P35 chipset worked out all the drives... thankfully.
doesn't help you now obviously, but your mobo/bios might not have the best ICHxR implementation on board.
doesn't help you now obviously, but your mobo/bios might not have the best ICHxR implementation on board.
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03 October 2009, 10:52 PM
#11
I forgot to do a follow up to this: Anyhoo, I got everything back, and restored my Raid 0 back to full working order (well, apart from losing the boot sector for vista, so needed to boot off another drive).
All free
Here's a link to how it was done (post #6):
Fixing Intel Matrix RAID 0 - EXTREME Overclocking Forums
For some reason I also had to swap over the connections on my HDs and start from step one again, even though I swear my drives were connected in their original order (I labelled them), so maybe this is a quirk.
You never know, it might happen to you (especially if you update the BIOS on a Gigabyte motherboard, like I did). And it only took a few mins to sort, so certainly alot quicker than digging out any backups.
All free
Here's a link to how it was done (post #6):
Fixing Intel Matrix RAID 0 - EXTREME Overclocking Forums
Thanks to everyone who tried to help. I found a solution and I thought I'd share it. I was able to recover the broken array using following steps.
1. Reset both HDs to non-member using Intel BIOS utility - the utility warns that all data will be lost - in fact only metadata is lost and can be recreated using steps below.
2. Create a new array with identical settings as the broken array. It is critical that the HDs are in the array the same order as before. I was reconnecting the drives several times and lost track of correct order. Because of that I had to go through the steps twice (I guessed wrong the first time).
3. Get TestDisk from Main Page - CGSecurity. I used Windows version (I installed a new Vista on a separate HD for this purpose).
4. Run TestDisk according to steps on the web site. If your HDs are connected in correct order, TestDisk should find the lost partition(s) within a few seconds. It ran for several hours, scanning my array and never found anything because I had HDs were connected in wrong order. After I changed the order and restarted from step #1 TestDisk found the missing partition immediately.
5. Have the TestDisk write the fixed partition table to the drive and reboot.
6. Now all your data on the array should be readable but the system might not boot (it didn't for me).
7. Run Vista repair from installation CD to fix the MBR.
8. Last but not least, send a donation to Mr. Grenier, the author of TestDisk.
1. Reset both HDs to non-member using Intel BIOS utility - the utility warns that all data will be lost - in fact only metadata is lost and can be recreated using steps below.
2. Create a new array with identical settings as the broken array. It is critical that the HDs are in the array the same order as before. I was reconnecting the drives several times and lost track of correct order. Because of that I had to go through the steps twice (I guessed wrong the first time).
3. Get TestDisk from Main Page - CGSecurity. I used Windows version (I installed a new Vista on a separate HD for this purpose).
4. Run TestDisk according to steps on the web site. If your HDs are connected in correct order, TestDisk should find the lost partition(s) within a few seconds. It ran for several hours, scanning my array and never found anything because I had HDs were connected in wrong order. After I changed the order and restarted from step #1 TestDisk found the missing partition immediately.
5. Have the TestDisk write the fixed partition table to the drive and reboot.
6. Now all your data on the array should be readable but the system might not boot (it didn't for me).
7. Run Vista repair from installation CD to fix the MBR.
8. Last but not least, send a donation to Mr. Grenier, the author of TestDisk.
You never know, it might happen to you (especially if you update the BIOS on a Gigabyte motherboard, like I did). And it only took a few mins to sort, so certainly alot quicker than digging out any backups.
Last edited by ALi-B; 03 October 2009 at 10:55 PM.
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