Hi there to everyone.
I have a big problem with my pc and I need HELP!!!!!!!!!.
I have an Asus M2N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard with two HD S-ATA raid 0 configuration.
My mobo faulted today, so I've replaced with another identical motherboard which just have an usb port faulty.
Now I have a very big problem with my Hard disk. Indeed, even if my raid configuration is well recognized during the boot process, I have problem with my three partition which are not well recognized. During PC boot I can just see the OS chose interface (I had two partition (one XP and one win7) and a third data partition) but after I choose the OS nothing happens. So I've started paragon hard disk manager professional with my boot cd and I found a surprise: the two logical partition which stored the two operation systems are recognized as one unique UNFORMATTED partition. The third partition (the extended one) is recognized as Free partition. But if I check hard disk sectors there are a lot of data, but of course not accessible.
How is it possible as I've replaced the motherboard with another identical motherboard (revisions are different, could it be the cause?). And the most important question: HOW I CAN RECOVERY MY DATA??? Do you know some specific software can do this? I really need help.
Thank you in advance.
Did you check to see if the replacement motherboard had the RAID controller enabled and is it the exact same motherboard and BIOS revision?
Hi, yes the raid is enable and the bios is the same version of the previous motherboard. About the problem...I've an update. For some unbelievable reason today the OS has started-up even if not completely: some background application is missing.
So I suspected an Hard Drive failure and I've checked the drive with the Western Digital diagnostic tool. But the reported error code actually is not clear: indeed, based on the information I've found on the web, this error code should indicate that the software version of the diagnostic tool is not update and is not suitable for my hard disks model: but this is the newest version I can find on WD website!!!
However, as I was able to start-up the os and I don't know what will happen if I restart it, I'm performing a backup of the most imortant files and then I'll try to perform further HW tests by breaking the RAID 0 and by examinating each drive singularly. THis is the second time in a few months I've problem with a WD drive. I'm considering to change for seagate. What are your experiences about HD company manufaturers?
Seagate has always made excellent drives and WD does normally too. Seems like they (WD) have had some trouble with the 500GB and 750GB drives as I had a lot of initial failures in those versions. Switched to Seagate and paid a little more but no issues.
If you have the capability I suggest setting one of the drives to one side and recreating the mirror with a new drive so you have a place to go back to. The mother board raid controller issue is one reason I always use a controller card instead of the motherboard.
Indeed I have two WD Caviar Black 500Gb each one. What do you mean as "setting one of the drives to one side and recreating the mirror with a new drive" ? Could you be so kind to clarify me this point?
I'm also considering to switch to a raid card instead of use the integrated raid controller. What do you suggest (good brand please?? ) ?
The purpose of RAID is to allow you have redundancy in case one of your hard drives dies. If you have third 500GB HD you could act as if one of the drives had failed and put the new drive in place of the "Failed" drive and the RAID controller would rebuild the array using the available drive as source. The new drive does not need to be the same model or mfg as the drive it is replace but must have the same capacity or greater (i.e. 750GB would work but 400GB would not.)
Personally I like 3ware or adaptec. You can find them on ebay for good prices.
This is true when you work in RAID1 mode (also named Mirroring) but in my case is a RAID 0 (striping) and in this case you have one big disc which capacity is equal to twice the smallest hard drive capacity, and is not possible to recovery something with one disk only. RAID 0 purpose is to increase PC speed, and it's preferred for OS.
However since yesterday the problem seems to be disappeared, and the Western Digital HW test too report no error . Actually I don't know how to classify this problem now. All the partition came back as they was before the motherboard faulty. Anyhow...thanks for your suggestions.
Opps. My mistake, I often forget about RAID 0 and consider anything less than 5 to be mirroring. Did not mean to lecture. I normally use RAID 5 for the best of both worlds but it takes at least 3 drives. Many of the systems I set up now a days use 6 to 10 Drives in RAID 10 (3 RAID 5 mirrored to other 3).
Hi Sebas,
You can retrieve your data with the help of Kernel for recover lost data software. If will do recovery of the data for all the three partitions and it's safe too. You can try from - http://www.recoverlostdata.net
Thanks
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