RAID caused problems

[Albretch]

I have a MAXTOR 6L080J4 Drive that I accidentally bound as a slave to
a cable that was supposed to be used in a RAID configuration only.

I only have data on this HDD.

I was in a rush trying to do some software stress testing with some
data in it.

The other previously existing drive on the cable was a 40 Gb MAXTOR
6L040J2 one.

As the OS was booting up, I could see the BIOS showing sometimes the
right info and picking up the drive and some other times showing
garbled info for the "Secondary Slave" drive.

I went to the BIOS to check the drive and noticed it was only showing
it as a 40Gb instead of an 80 Gb one. I noticed it was the RAID slot
and changed the 80Gb drive to the IDE 2 slot with the CD-ROM drive.
and then the BIOS was showing it always fine as a 80 Gb one and
Windows 2000 shows it to me in the explorer window and tells me "the
device is working properly" when I can not reach the data in it

So, apparently the OS destroyed the data or the FAT (instead of
refussing to take the other larger drive) without letting you know!?!

._ I tried Norton Disk Doctor which tells me:

"Unable to access drive E:"

"The Volume does not contain a recognized file system."


._ if I try the to go "Properties > Tools > Check Now" and check (or
not) both "Automatically fix file system errors" and "Scan for and
attempt recovery of bad sectors" the windows just closes when I click
OK


._ PC inspector shows me all folders names fine, but it is not
fixing/aligning the data in it.


Since the disk is not making any noises or anything like that, I
don't think the disk has any physical problems, but only "logical"
ones.

Is there anyway to get back my data?

Have you done it yourself? With which tools?

 

[Arno Wagner]

I have a MAXTOR 6L080J4 Drive that I accidentally bound as a slave to
a cable that was supposed to be used in a RAID configuration only.

I only have data on this HDD.

I was in a rush trying to do some software stress testing with some
data in it.

The other previously existing drive on the cable was a 40 Gb MAXTOR
6L040J2 one.

As the OS was booting up, I could see the BIOS showing sometimes the
right info and picking up the drive and some other times showing
garbled info for the "Secondary Slave" drive.

I went to the BIOS to check the drive and noticed it was only showing
it as a 40Gb instead of an 80 Gb one. I noticed it was the RAID slot
and changed the 80Gb drive to the IDE 2 slot with the CD-ROM drive.
and then the BIOS was showing it always fine as a 80 Gb one and
Windows 2000 shows it to me in the explorer window and tells me "the
device is working properly" when I can not reach the data in it

So, apparently the OS destroyed the data or the FAT (instead of
refussing to take the other larger drive) without letting you know!?!

[...]

Did this RAID do automatic resyncing, i.e. did it integrate the
new disk into the RAID? That would mean that the raid was running
degraded before. If so, you likely lost the first 40GB of the drive.

Otherwise you might just have gotten the beginning of the disk (MBR)
overwritten with a RAID superblock and the partitions and data should
be mostly intact.

Still the RAID controller should only do automated changes to a new
disk if it was configured to do so. What RAID controller in what
configuration was this?

Arno

 

[Albretch]

Did this RAID do automatic resyncing, i.e. did it integrate the
new disk into the RAID? That would mean that the raid was running
degraded before. If so, you likely lost the first 40GB of the drive.

Otherwise you might just have gotten the beginning of the disk (MBR)
overwritten with a RAID superblock and the partitions and data should
be mostly intact.

Still the RAID controller should only do automated changes to a new
disk if it was configured to do so. What RAID controller in what
configuration was this?

Arno

It is an Abit KR7A-RAID KT266A based one.

At start up you can read:

High Point Technologies, Inc. HPT370/372 UDMA/ATA
RAID Controller V2.0.1024

So, any hopes?

 

[Arno Wagner]

It is an Abit KR7A-RAID KT266A based one.

At start up you can read:

High Point Technologies, Inc. HPT370/372 UDMA/ATA
RAID Controller V2.0.1024

So, any hopes?

This is a RAID1 solution. Hmm.
Best try with one of the partition finder tools discussed here.

If the partitions are all stillthere you likely lost only the MBR.

Arno