data from raid array

[oddjob]

i have a pc that is set up with a raid array that the mobo has failed and instead of repairing it i need to recover the data from the drives, how do i go about this, can i put the drives into a caddy and use software to acces it, something like getdataback for ntfs or similar. is it possible to set up another pc as a raid array and do a repair install of xp to be able to transfer the data out afterwards? excuse the noobishness of the post but i do not know much about raid array.

[dirky]

I assume it was onboard raid, best option - imho - is to try to source a mobo with the same raid chipset, if not the same board. what kind of raid was it?

[oddjob]

i not completely sure but i think it was raid0 setup, maybe a replacement mobo will be the way to go but that will have to wait for a while due to lack of funds so i shall try to investigate how to get the data from the disks for now

[dirky]

yep i think thats the best bet. what motherboard was it?
if you have space, and the data is important you might want to do a drive image of each drive before attempting to do anything. ie, under linux using dd

[peterb]

RAID 0 is difficult to recover - you might try some of the tools from www.runtime.org - however the advice given above (to image the two drives - and rthen work on the images - is very good - it is all too easy to make a bad situation worse - by imaging the drives, you still have the original source, so if you mess up, you can re-image.

Of course the other solution would be to simply reload the data from the backup... - maybe next time?

[oddjob]

going to go dwn the road of a replacement mobo and will definitely image the drives before doing anything. i have used imaging software in windows before but never in linux before. any recommendations on how i do this ie run linux from boot cd/ usb drive and which prog to use

as an after thought - is it possible to use a pci card that has the same controller on it as the orig mobo in a pc to access the drives??

going to make new post about the mob as the only place i have currently found it available is on ebay

[dirky]

Method: http://madberry.org/2009/01/clone-a-drive-with-dd/
You can boot from any livecd, knoppix etc will be fine. Make sure when you dd the image you have enough space on the target drive - and you copy the right one!

[peterb]

The basic dd command is the one to use (from a command line or terminal window.

format is :

dd if=/dev/{source} of=/dev/{destination}

where the source is a standard *nix drive designator - eg hda, hdb sda,sdb etc. The important bit is identifying the drives correctly, as the previous poster said.

[oddjob]

managed to source another mobo which is the same make model etc which arrived today, drives from original board are cloning now in case i bugger them up.
considering i am swapping the dead mobo for the exact same board if i set up the raid array as it was before wiill it simply boot straight back up and work like a normal setup would or is that too simple. if not will a simple repair install of xp work so no data is lost??

[dirky]

Technically that should work, and being that no hardware has changed as far as XP is concerned it should work without a repair. If you have images if the drives then you can play around a bit

[GoNz0]

1st thing to try is a plain boot and windows may still see the raid array even if you have not reset it in the bios, chance is you will need AHCI mode set in the bios to pull this off.