RAID 0 - data recovery?

[nikko]

I'm trying to help a friend of mine out. His desktop seems to be on the fritz, and I'm guessing it's a hard drive failure. He really needs to get some data off the drives for a pending court case. Naturally the data wasn't backed up His two disks are in a RAID 0 configuration. More specifically, he has two 250 GB physical drives that made up a 500 GB logical drive. So my questions are as follows:

-What options does he have for recovering his data?

-Is there anything I can try to recover the data?

-Would a professional service be able to help? If so, is there a national chain that you would recommend?

I've tried starting the machine in safe mode with no luck. FWIW, the blue screen error message it gives is "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer". The error code is 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8050D532, 0xF79383B8, 0xF79380B4).

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

[0roo0roo]

don't touch those drives.
you don't want to write anything further to them, you will only corrupt them and make it harder to recover.
raid 0 is incredibly stupid for important data, you need professional data arecovery service, a good one will make copies of the drives even before attempting to do anything to them.

if you are going to attempt anything yourself, clone the drives onto new ones before you try anything.

that it boots at all assuming windows is on the raid means the drives are atleast semi readable.
it might be possible to recover windows.
but as i said, back up the drives and nwork from copies.

 

[RebateMonger]

I've tried starting the machine in safe mode with no luck. FWIW, the blue screen error message it gives is "A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer". The error code is 0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8050D532, 0xF79383B8, 0xF79380B4).

Data recovery from a striped array (like RAID 0 or RAID 5) is best left to professionals. I certainly wouldn't attempt it.

As already noted, a professional data recovery service will clone the disks (if they are readable) and work on the cloned data. If one of the disks isn't readable, then they'll have to physically repair the disk enough to get the data off.

I don't have any experience-based recommendations of data recovery companies. The old standby, of course, is Ontrack. They've been around for decades now.

 

[RebateMonger]

Hmmmm...identical STOP error (including all four parameters):
0x0000007E (0xC0000005, 0x8050D532, 0xF79383B8, 0xF79380B4)

http://social.answers.microsoft.com...65ba8950#a73dc068-6208-46f2-9b25-b11474bab619

Q:
"I just tried turning on my computer and i got the black screen that gives you the choice whether to start in Windows XP or Recovery Console, and when I click start in Windows, it loads, and then I get a quick blue screen of death displaying an error code at the bottom, and the computer automatically restarts. When I disable auto restart in advanced options I get the blue screen displaying this code: ***STOP: 0X0000007E (0XC0000005, 0X8050D532, 0XF78A23B8, 0XF78A20B4) I searched this code on Google and did not get ANY results. I am sure I did not miscopy it, as I have checked many times. I tried starting in safe mode but then I get a black screen with many codes (waaaayyy to many to copy down) and the computer restarts. Does anybody know what to do? I have many important business files on there that I cannot lose. Thank you! Any help or tips are appreciated."

A:
"While this error can be caused by malware infection, it is commonly found when the RAM has failed. In any case, you will want to get the data files off before doing anything else. Do this with one of these methods...."

=============================

When first looking at your STOP error, I was wondering where the error message itself would come from on a failed RAID 0 array. Those have to come from files written on the boot disk or boot array. But I don't know if they are written individually (and wholly) to each disk of a striped array, or if the presence of a STOP message means that the RAID 0 array is still readable to some extent.

So, before sending off the disks for data recovery, I'd disconnect them (carefully labelling the connectors and cables) and boot to a Memtest86+ CD and test the memory.

 

[0roo0roo]

It wouldn't, a failed raid 0 array wouldn't boot at all, each disc only has half the data, so it would not be able to boot windows at all. not to say there couldn't be unreadable areas on a disc. thats the danger of raid 0, you write half of everything to each disc, and if one disc fails, you have half of everything, which is as good as nothing.

 

[nikko]

Hmmm....is there such a thing as a raid external drive enclosure? Am wondering if there's a way to connect them that way to another computer so we can pull the data off.

I tried different memory but then I got a "memory read/write" error in the post operation and it wouldn't boot at all.

 

[0roo0roo]

it would have to use the same raid controller chip if hardware raid. this is the hell of raid.
not sure how it works if it was a raid volume made by windows software raid.

 

[Red Squirrel]

We had to recover medical data off a raid 0 at work. No fun. Our IT manager has this mentality that we should know everything and if something goes wrong it's our fault etc... so he was on our back till it was "exactly like it was before". This was a server in another building that we had no idea we even had to support. Had we known, we would of made it a raid 1 or raid 5.

It's doable if it's not damaged too badly, but chances are you will get corruption. We sent the drives off to a recovery company. Best to leave it to the pros. They have special tools, clean room, etc.

We ended up having to reinstall the OS and software, but we were able to recover the actual data. I'd say we got lucky though.

 

[RebateMonger]

thats the danger of raid 0, you write half of everything to each disc, and if one disc fails, you have half of everything, which is as good as nothing.

It was funny. A few years ago, on another forum, a member was claiming that data from a failed RAID 0 array could be recovered using just one disk. We were all, "You've got to be kidding".

 

[Red Squirrel]

It was funny. A few years ago, on another forum, a member was claiming that data from a failed RAID 0 array could be recovered using just one disk. We were all, "You've got to be kidding".

LMAO.

Probably mistaking it for raid 1, but still quite funny. Raid 0 = 0 protection, is what I say.

 

[0roo0roo]

LMAO.

Probably mistaking it for raid 1, but still quite funny. Raid 0 = 0 protection, is what I say.

lol but worse, its 0 protection with +2x chance of failure

 

[RebateMonger]

I tried different memory but then I got a "memory read/write" error in the post operation and it wouldn't boot at all.

But you didn't try a Memtest86+ with the current setup yet? Based on the MS answer, that's what I'd do next, again, with the disks disconnected.

What did the BIOS of your RAID controller say about the array? Did it report a failed disk?

 

[nikko]

But you didn't try a Memtest86+ with the current setup yet? Based on the MS answer, that's what I'd do next, again, with the disks disconnected.

What did the BIOS of your RAID controller say about the array? Did it report a failed disk?

I'm not quite sure how to do that. Never run a Memtest86 before. Any advice on how to go about doing that would be much appreciated. Also, I don't see anything in the BIOS that references RAID at all.

Also, I forgot to mention this, but during post, I got a "system battery voltage is low" alert. And during the boot sequence, I got a message that said "invalid boot.ini Booting from c:/windows". Not sure if that information is helpful, but I thought I'd pass it along.

Thanks again to everyone who's responded.

 

[RebateMonger]

I'm not quite sure how to do that. Never run a Memtest86 before. Any advice on how to go about doing that would be much appreciated. Also, I don't see anything in the BIOS that references RAID at all.

Download the latest ISO file for Windows (.zip), burn it to make a bootable CD, and boot to it. Let it run overnight.
http://www.memtest.org/

You said you are running RAID 0. How was that set up? Often folks have onboard RAID chipsets that they use (along with drivers loaded into Windows) to create a bootable RAID array. Or you may have a separate RAID card, again with drivers loaded into Windows.

Either of these would have a special RAID BIOS that is available on boot (usually a key combination to enter the RAID BIOS to set up the RAID array and to manage it. The panel that comes up would tell you the status of the array and the disks comprising the array.

I'm assuming you aren't running Windows Software RAID because you can't boot to that.

 

[Red Squirrel]

lol but worse, its 0 protection with +2x chance of failure

Haha yep.

I've always wanted to do a raid 0 with like 10 drives. Call it data roulette. :awe: