I decided to give Linux another try..I hear great things about this Linux Mint...
Im confortable in my Windows bubble..Windows7 Really changed things and has proven effective and reliable..I always did want to speak Linux a little more fluently though..I have downloaded Lin Mint 11...debian..Fedora 8 was the last Linux I was really messing with ..its been a while..
I keep my Os's and my data seperate..I have a RAID1 MIRROR of two 1.5TB drives where ALL my dats that has passed with me from years past to now..Music Video Movies Pictures all safe and locked away on my raid..Now I after installing Linux Mint 11 I now see even though I didnt install on that drive..Included a 320 gig laptop drive just for LINUX..Now Lost and found folder is all that is on the EXT4 file system of my beautiful its all here I cant loose even from disc failure or os related hard drive crash..My win 7 part is on an SSD stripe and Linux was on its own drive but my raid is gone any proven way to fix this? Im getting a little edgy on this one?
any pro's that fix hdd's that are reallllllly good and reallly affordable?
Linux is a cool toy but for what I just lost.....Words cant describe..
Why else would I use a mirror raid?

At first, a RAID system is in no way a a substitute for a backup system, and that never was it's purpose.

It is somewhat hard for me to really understand your setup. If I understand you right you have a SSD for Win 7, a laptop disk for Linux and a RAID 1 system with two 1,5 TB disks. Is that a software ore a hardware RAID?
Please start from your Mint CD and post the output of

Im in windows trying to recover the drive at the moment heres the breakdown..1 My MOBO has intel ICH10R raid on board..Im tired of windows creeping crawiling or crapping out and I loose data.I set up two 1.5TB drives as a RAID1 on my on board controller..No OS is to go on them just data..Have a disc failure fine there are TWO of them exactly a like...Windows has its OWN drive all windows stuff..this is a pair of ultra unreliable OCZ Agility 3's set in a STRIPE Raid0...This was so I get the 600MB/S read 575MB/S write that a HDD cannot provide...Decided to reinstall Linux..I didnt want it screwing with my windows drives. I looked and found a spare Sata HDD laying around, it happens to be a laptop hdd but it still full sata forum factor, for our puropses its just another 320GB sata HDD The PROBLEM is that my beautiful raid1 my 1.36TB NTFS file system with everthing I REALLY wanted somehow became a swapfile for Linux Mint and even though it has its OWN HDD to install to decided to FORMAT that one too.. my disc breakdown is like this


Drive0 = RAID1, 1.5TB HDD EXT 4 SWAP.....<<THIS SHOULD BE NTFS with all my stuff
Drive1 = RAID0, 120GB SSD NTFS <<WINDOWS 7 ULTIMATE lives here
Drive2 = WDC RE4 2TB HDD NTFS <<Misc storage not relevant
Drive3 = Fujitsu 320 GB HDD EXT 4 ROOT <<Linux lives here ONLY HDD
Need something to UN repartition and Un -Ext4 that drive back to NTFS with my files and directorys in tact...looking at MS software to do this..

Try testdisk from a live-CD, it may be able to recover the original partition table. If it is not able to do that you can use photorec, which is part of that package to recover your files.

Lession learned for the future, I hope: Make backups.

I thought I did...the second MIRRORED DISC...but I was wrong...I SHOULD have unplugged the discs as i often do..I stopped because my ICH10R wants to VARIFY the entire disc when they are plugged back in..
it just slows me down for a long time
Lesson learned though..
Will try that ..the EASEUS data recovery has some error and crashes constantly and
the Zero Assumption I bought as well didnt do squat..So far Im 3 days and about 100.00 with NOTHING but a nice mirrored swap file to show for it..
Thanks..

I presume the DVD I nstalled with counts as a LIVE CD...?
How do I command line these programs..I have never heard of them before..
any special "/" lines I need?

Yes, but I don't know if the Mint Live-DVD comes with testdisk.

Just start them with or They have user interfaces.