Dead PC - RAID still ok?

[finnrogers]

My PC died on me over the weekend. I think it's a dead motherboard. I was running 2 Maxtor DiamondMax 10s in RAID 0. I expect I will be buying all new motherboard, CPU, GFX etc, so I was just wondering is it just a case of setting up the RAID 0 configuration on the new motherboard to access my files or are they gone forever? Is this what is known as "migrating" a RAID setup?

[peterb]

Hard to say - same make and model - probably yes. Same make and series - maybe. Same make - perhaps.

Different make - who knows? - depends on the controller chipset and algorithms. Unless you start comparing the tech details closely, it is almost impossible to say - you might strike lucky and it all bursts into life, but I should dust those backup files off just in case, or if you haven't got backups and the data is critical, a data revovery company may be able to get it back for you - at a price.

[this_is_gav]

Assuming the motherboard itself had the RAID controller, then if you bought a motherboard with that same RAID controller, it should in theory work, but no guarantees. I know it has worked on certain ones transfers previously though. Certainly it won't work cross platform - if you had, say a ULi motherboard RAID control and bought a Intel-based one, then you'd be stuffed. Likewise there's a large risk of it not working if you moved from, say an Intel P965 to P35 (though I've seen instances of this working in the past too).

[impossible]

What mobo was it?

I had a abit mobo die on me and I was able to get a external highpoint pci raid card (same chipset as the one that the dead mobo had) and then connected my disks to the pci controller to get the data I needed.


Imp

[finnrogers]

Mine's a Neo2 Platinum (Skt 939) - I'm not sure if I was using the MSI RAID controller or the other one that came on that board, I'll have to check.

[Agent]

Likewise there's a large risk of it not working if you moved from, say an Intel P965 to P35 (though I've seen instances of this working in the past too).

I'm actually fairly sure that the Intel based RAID are backward compatible. I've changed across chipsets without issue with RAID0.

Chipsets based on Silicon Image are usualy the worst for this. I've seen a basic BIOS update to the RAID card arse around with the array. Highpoint / rocket RAID cards are normally ok too.

It just depends on the card / drivers. Sadly there is no universal standard.

[Sema4]

Like Agent, I too have sucessfully moved a RAID array from one machine, to another, between two completely different controllers (from an nvidia raid controller to a silicone image raid controller) and it went without issue.

I just booted in to the raid controller on the new board, added the devices and the array popped right up.

There are no hard and fast rules about compatability, and your milage may varey, but there is a good chance it will work in my experience, what ever thats worth.

[finnrogers]

Thanks everyone, I will post in January when I get my new bits and let you know if it worked.