Help with restoring data from failed RAID-0 array

[semovrs]

Hello, everyone!
My Abit KG7-RAID motherboard one day refused to start my computer. All
I see is flashing lights of my two CD-ROMs when I power the PC up. I
hear no beeps to indicate problems with my graphics card or any other
component.
I have set up RAID-0 with two IDE hard drives. Since the RAID
functionality is integrated in the motherboard I don't know how I can
restore my data from the two hard drives if I figure out that the
motherboard is a dead beat.
Do you know how I can restore this data? I run Linux on my machine and
the RAID-0 array is formatted for ReiserFS. I have not done backup for
almost one year now. I know it was a mistake but any ideas as to how I
can possibly restore any of the data on these two drives would be
greatly appreciated!
Thank you very much for any advice!
Roumen.

 

[TomG]

you can restore the data, assuming it is that critical, by virtue of
installing a Highpoint 370/372 PCI add-in card and connecting the drives to
that card. assuming that the bios in the add-in card is somewhere close to
the bios you were running before, and an exact version match would be best,
then there would be no data loss (again, assuming that whatever took out the
mobo didn't have any side-effects on the drives...)

of course, a regular, routine backup of the raid 0 drive data would be the
best approach...

--

Thomas Geery
Network+ certified

ftp://geerynet.d2g.com
ftp://68.98.180.8 Abit Mirror <----- Cable modem IP
This IP is dynamic so it *could* change!...
over 130,000 FTP users served!
^^^^^^^

 

[Kasper Dupont]

I have set up RAID-0 with two IDE hard drives. Since the RAID
functionality is integrated in the motherboard I don't know how I can
restore my data from the two hard drives if I figure out that the
motherboard is a dead beat.

I don't know if the particular format used by your mobo
is already supported in software. But probably the
reverse engineering task wouldn't be too difficult.

What I'd do was to first create a large software raid
from new disks. A raid-5 with at least four times as
much capacity as your old raid should suffice. When
that is ready I'd copy the raw disks from your old
raid into two files on your new raid. Next put the old
disks away so you still have whatever is on them in
case something should go wrong.

Next you log in as a user with only read access to the
two files and try to figure out the format. Probably
it amounts to just finding out the size of the header
and the stripe size. You can then write a small program,
that will copy the data in the right order into a new
file, which you can mount using the loopback driver.

As for partitioning of the disks for a software raid-5
I would use type fd (Linux raid autodetect) partitions.
And I would leave the first 32MB of each disk free such
that it can later be used to create a raid-1 for boot.

 

[Michael Heiming]

In comp.os.linux.hardware (e-mail address removed):

Hello, everyone!
My Abit KG7-RAID motherboard one day refused to start my computer. All
I see is flashing lights of my two CD-ROMs when I power the PC up. I
hear no beeps to indicate problems with my graphics card or any other
component.
I have set up RAID-0 with two IDE hard drives. Since the RAID
functionality is integrated in the motherboard I don't know how I can
restore my data from the two hard drives if I figure out that the
motherboard is a dead beat.
Do you know how I can restore this data? I run Linux on my machine and
the RAID-0 array is formatted for ReiserFS. I have not done backup for
almost one year now. I know it was a mistake but any ideas as to how I
can possibly restore any of the data on these two drives would be
greatly appreciated!

Sounds like telling, went on the highway with my car capable of
doing >200 km/h, breaks didn't worked at all, I knew but didn't
cared, since breaks are just for losers. Accidentally smashed into
a wall, breaking the car completely, now how can I repair it
easily?

Despite what others already suggested, getting the same
mobo/controller and hope for the best, you have made a rapid
track course, showing what is really important, if your data has
any value: *BACKUP*, *BACKUP*,*BACKUP*...

Disk break, it is not a question if, only when, RAID0 doubles the
probability and controller/etc may fall apart or just a little
mistake as UID 0 and the system is useless in a second.

With todays hd sizes, without $$ equipment like tape chargers/etc
the easiest is to simply get a large cheapo IDE disk, put it in
some USB enclosure and use 'rsync/unison/etc' to sync the data on
a regular base to the backup disk.

Good luck