Linux Newbie with a RAID 0 problem
 

Hi all,

I'm new to linux, in fact I'm using at the moment Puppy Linux on my Dell computer that is usualy operating with Vista.

I bought in 2007 a XPS 720 that was configured with 2 HDD 500Mb RAID 0 Stripe. One of the drive failed with a 99% chance of never recover my data; unless paying big money...

When booting (F12) I have done a HDD diagnostic, both drive passed but it is impossible to access the OS.

All connections and other hardware works fine, I've installed new HDD with vista. The problem is really with one of the HDD.

When booting Puppy Linux these drive appears as empty, not formated and I'm not able to mount them.

Is there a way of accessing these data through Puppy linux? Or any other cheaper way?

Thanks for your advices

Hi,

You have mentioned you lost a drive in a Raid 0?

If this is the case, well unfortunately Raid 0 uses un-mirrored stripes and losing a disk means total data loss as the data is quiet literally split between the hard-drives in a way for the largest possibly performance increases but for the minimal possible redundancy (it's actually more likely to lose your data in a raid 0 then just having 2 separate hard drives not in raid). Without Both Drives in good working order, it's essentially unfeasible to recover the data as the data was split every block (say every 512K of data) between each hard drive... This is the risks of raid 0, lose a disc, lose the ENTIRE raid, if this really is the case there is simply nothing that can be done, unless the broken disc can be repaired that is.

Hi,

Yes RAID 0 Stripe, the technician where I've sent my drives said that one of them was dead and it was going to be very expensive to recover the data; so I didn't proceed further.

I know the issue of a RAID 0 failure and I have only myself to blame not to have done any backups, but what is suprising me is that both drives passed HDD diagnostic (F12 when booting).

They are categorized "not present" on the boot sequence.

Is it possible that the boot sector is missing ? and why did they appears as non formated neither partitioned (FAT).

Windows boot disk dont recognise them but Puppy Linux does partialy.

Thanks

Any ideas ?