WinXP and RAID 0 crashed...

Hello,
I really don't know if this is the right place to post or if it's hardware, but I think the problem was caused by WinXP... so...

I WAS running a system with Windows XP pro on a Asus P4C800 Deluxe mainboard.
The Asus has an embedded promise RAID controller, so I used it with a two Maxtor 80GB IDE HD in a RAID 0 configuration.
Yesterday I was copying a big file from an other PC to mine (with not a lot of space left), but the system frooze and neither Ctrl-alt-canc worked out.
May be I would have waited, but (without thinking a lot) I switched the power off...

The result is that the RAID array is broken: the master HD is no longer part of the array, and the controller refuse to recover (because the RAID configuration is RAID 0)....
I was quite confident because of the S.M.A.R.T. system for the disks's health...
I'm quite sure that all informations still are in the disks (I think the problem was not an hardware problem, but a WinXP problem or eventually a Promise controller problem)....

OK I knew the risk of a RAID 0 system, I've the backup of all my work, but a lot of other things, my mail and some photos are only in that disks...

The big question is:
“If I create a NEW array with the disks in the same position/configuration, will I preserve the data, so to dig the disks with some undelete tools, or I'm going to delete everything ?? In other words, the stripes will be the same or the alignement will be different ??â€

For now I leave the disks untouched... hoping for some ideas...

Thank you for reading so long!!

Paolo

 

Let me put it more bluntly - if you create a new array, your existing data is toast. Yes, you'll also have to do a clean install of your OS. I'm tight on time right now but later this afternoon or early this evening, I'll try to post a couple of RAID recovery possibilities for you.

 

Thank you for your answers...

I'm not sure why you tell me that I'm required to reinstall the OS...

May be, after creating a new array, I've to partition the disk again so everything would be lost....

I'll try to search the net (thank you Steve) but Rockster2U, If you have something to make me try I'll be glad!! I've no hurry, so take your time!!

Thank you again! (And sorry for my poor english...)

Paolo

 

For People who may be interested I post the solution...

I tried a couple of utilities/program that would create the complete image starting from the two RAID 0 images or the two drives connected as simple IDE drives... I had only little success: this only made me grab directory names and file names.

I searched the internet site of Promise for the exact work parameters of their controller (I thought that this was the problem for recovering the full image) and I discovered that it was possible to try to rebuild an array after deleting it or after a problem, without destroying it.... so... it worked !!!!!

I will never use stripe arrays again... only mirror!!!!

Paolo