UBCD vs RAID

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IT_HAP
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Joined: Sat Aug 16, 2008 11:33 pm

UBCD vs RAID

#1 Post by IT_HAP » Sun Aug 17, 2008 12:18 am

First time on this board - looking for a lifeline and hoping the UBCD is it.

I have never used the UBCD so I have no idea what magical things it might be capable of [picture me kneeling and praying at this point :( ]

I've heard good things and have read much of the feedback so I'm inspired to try it... particularly in light of my current nightmare.

OK, I know this isn't a help-resolve-your-pc-problems forum but I feel it's necessary to describe my current problem to make my need clear. Without the history it may not give you guys/gals what you need to fill me in on how the UBCD might help.

I'll try to be brief...

A couple of years ago I bought a PC which was to become my main workstation while doubling as a sort of server in a simple Peer-to-Peer home office network. Since I'm an IT guy, I normally build and setup my own PCs but on this occasion the shop where I bought the components took it upon themselves to assemble the PC and setup the software basics as well - not something I wanted them to do but it was done already so I grabbed the PC and headed home. I wanted a PC with three 320GB SATA drives on an ASUS A8N SLI Deluxe board with a built-in RAID controller and that's what I got. But I hadn't yet decided how I wanted to setup the array so when the PC arrived with an active RAID array already, I groaned but then I thought what the he11, and simply started to use it (mistake). I continued to use the PC for the past 2 years.... until yesterday.

Yesterday, as I was using the PC *stuff* started to happen that required a reboot but after that reboot I got a message from the board about a boot failure and no boot media. I realized it had to be related to the RAID array and then got a sinking feeling when I remembered that I didn't know what type of array was defined - was it RAID0?, RAID1?, RAID5?, was it setup for mirroring?, striping?, what amount of drive space was assigned to the array?, which drive was the primary drive?..... no idea on all counts (kicking myself :?).

Anyway, I soon found that 2 of 3 RAID drives were no longer part of the array. A little checking revealed that all the drives were still functional but that they had somehow dropped out of the array - probably from bad connections due to oxidation from a recent flooding. In any case, the A8N SLI Deluxe board didn't allow a magical rebuild nor did it allow the drives to be added to the array again but that might stem from my not knowing how it was setup in the first place. I suspect that the two drives became disconnected which caused the PC glitches and since they weren't available for the auto rebuild of the array, shutting down was a trip to nowhere.

So I started checking for RAID recovery help on-line and actually found a brief reference to the UBCD. But when I visited the site, I didn't find anything referring to RAID tools on the UBCD.

So, after all that, my question is this: Can the UBCD help me restore, rebuild or otherwise recover any part of an unknown RAID array? I know it would have to be pretty magical to do that but let's just say I'm grasping at straws.

In case it matters, it is/was a WinXP Pro SP2 PC with an NTFS file system and lots of critical data that I'd like to think I didn't lose completely.

So, UBCD vs RAID - what's the verdict? Is there any hope there?

TIA

IT_HAP

The Piney
Posts: 370
Joined: Mon Apr 30, 2007 11:06 am
Location: FL

#2 Post by The Piney » Sun Aug 17, 2008 1:32 am

I've checked this out before but haven't had to use it yet, worth a try..

http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

The RAID Reconstructor is the one I'm talking about and it can be added to a UBCD4Win build. You need a XP source to build this but a trial of the software is avail to see if it will help before buying. At $99 it might be a reasonable price.

Another is R-Studio and I've seen quite a few recommendations for it. Several of the regular posters at UBCD4Win's forum highly suggest this as the best - http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

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