Here is my setup:
Asus p8z77-v pro motherboard
C: Disk Samsung SSD booting Windows 7 Ultimate 64
S: Disk Samsung SSD storing data
Areca ARC-1222 pciE hosting eight WD Caviar Black 2TB disks in RAID 5 (storing data)

Here's what initially happened: I started having random issues with the array. Sometimes the array BIOS would not load, sometimes it would load but a hard disk would report as disconnected or failing, sometimes neither would happen and everything is fine. During this period of time my video card suddenly became undetectable through Windows and I had to RMA it.

After replacing the graphics card with an older one, and replacing two of the eight hard disks in the array, everything was perfectly fine for several days. Then I decided to flash the motherboard bios from 1015 -> 1504. I did not remove the array during the flash (which may be my downfall). Since then, the array has gone into a state where it will not mount. The RAID card is showing properly in device manager under disk drives and storage controllers but the volume under Windows 7 Disk Management represents it as Disk Dynamic Invalid. If I select Activate I get "this operation is not allowed on the invalid disk pack" I also tried offlining it and putting back online. No luck. After downflashing the bios to the original 1015 and also re-installing Windows, the array remains in this unmountable state. The health of the array and the disks is reported as Normal and the volume check passed with no problems (all done through the Areca admin interface).

My question is, what tools and processes can I try to get this array to mount? The data is mostly backed up, so it is not a disaster to lose it, but I am willing to invest time and some money to avoid losing it. Thanks in advance for any assistance anyone will provide.

try and download r-studio and see if you can scan it through that.

R-studio is able to start scanning it at the very least. Will take over 24 hours to scan the entire array though...

Click on the green partition and open it

I can open it and see files and preview them. And there are several other green colored partitions that showed up. What now to get this mounted?

If data is important, save the files you need elsewhere, format the RAID and transfer it back

Recognized2 is the one. double click on that one and it should come back and show you the data.

as hddguy said, make sure you have another medium to transfer the data too.

DO NOT COPY BACK TO THE SAME RAID.

I agree that you will need to recover the data to a completely different set of drives. But, I'd be a lot more comfortable with you taking the time to get a full sector-by-sector clone of each drive first.

_________________
Luke
Recovery Force Data Recovery

The data from my "unmountable" array is now backed up thanks to R-Studio. I'm already resigned to rebuilding the array and actually bought new hard drives for that, but in a last ditch attempt, I would still like to see if I can get this mounted. Anyone have any suggestions?

Using TestDisk, when I do analyse, partition 2 is shown twice which I am assuming is invalid. Also, partition 1 starts at 34 instead of at 1 which also looks invalid to me.


When I choose Quick Search, only partition 3 is displayed (the files are subsequently viewable) and when I continue the Write option is provided with ONLY this partition listed and none of the earlier ones.


When I choose deeper search a few warnings come up about heads cylinders mismatches. At the rate it is going, this search would not finish for several days, so this appears to be a fruitless attempt to mount with TestDisk.