Blown Mobo / RAID 1 Software Recovery

[jw1re]

Hey guys,

I'm not sure where to turn and have been very hesitant on doing this and I am on a budget to do this at the moment, so I'm unable financially to send the drives into a drive recovery company as of now... but here's my situation if anyone has any opinions or could help me out.

I had an old machine with an EVGA nVidia nForce 680i SLI motherboard (LGA775 Intel Chipset), that fried on me - capacitors blew. I was running Windows XP and had two HDD's with RAID 1 (Software config) setup. They are two Seagate 500GB SATA's mirroring eachother. I have everything except for the original motherboard.

I recently purchased a cheaper, new LGA775 Gigabyte motherboard from eBay in hopes that I could just put everything back together and boot up like nothing happened and access everything on the files I need. The one thing I noticed with the new motherboard was that it had half of the RAM slots, (DDR2) as my original motherboard, so I will only have 2 gigs instead of 4.

The questions I have are as follows;

1.) If I put everything together with this new motherboard, will I be able to boot the computer without the potential of losing my data?

2.) If I were to get the EXACT same mobo as I had before, would this work if question 1 will not?

3.) I have a SATA > USB converter, and I see that the disks are almost full, but I am unable to read any of the data. (I was a lot younger and had a friend set this computer up for me, and I knew it was in a RAID 1 config { mirroring } and never had a physical hardware raid controller in the computer, so I'm assuming by not being able to pull from the drives individually that it is a software raid.

Thank you again for your time, I'm average at this stuff, and rather inexperienced so if there's any clarification needed, please let me know.

Plz help :X

[lcoughey]

This should be something really simple to help with remotely.

[fzabkar]

3.) I have a SATA > USB converter, and I see that the disks are almost full, but I am unable to read any of the data.

Can you show us the contents of sector 0?

You could use DMDE (freeware disc editor) for this:
http://dmde.com/

Can you show us DMDE's Partitions window?

DMDE can also work with RAIDs.

[Dmitri]

Are you sure about the RAID level?
With a RAID1 working properly you should see the same data on each drive right away, without any additional actions.

[fzabkar]

Are you sure about the RAID level?
With a RAID1 working properly you should see the same data on each drive right away, without any additional actions.

Maybe the RAID has an offset, or maybe the USB-SATA bridge is configured for 4KB sector sizes.

[Dmitri]

Maybe the RAID has an offset, or maybe the USB-SATA bridge is configured for 4KB sector sizes.

Such recoveries usually go to other engineers, so I don't see many of them myself, but the only older MBs with offset I remember are the "advanced" ones - overclocker, etc. I don't think that's the case, especially considering the OP mentioned blown capacitors.
But if we are talking about such board, it's worth trying to set the offset to 2048.

And OP said he has a working MB atm. With proper precautions it should be possible to connect one of the drives directly and analyze the contents without a bridge.

[jw1re]

For whatever reason, I'm able to get the files from one of the HDD's.... But the files don't seem to actually work when I try to open them. And a lot of partial pictures etc.

What could be the problem?


EDIT:

I have also attached the window for the partitions of one of the HDD's in DMDE as requested.

Attachments

[Dmitri]

I have also attached the window for the partitions of one of the HDD's

There's just a general info, but it looks like you've been using RAID 0, not RAID 1.

[fzabkar]

@jw1re, the partition table in sector 0 is showing that the RAID has a single 1TB NTFS volume, not 500GB. This means that the RAID is striped across your two drives, not mirrored.

DMDE allows you to assemble your RAID. Alternatively you could use mdadm (a Linux software RAID).

Is your second 500GB drive functional, and can DMDE see the backup NTFS boot sector at the end of the volume?

I could try to help you assemble your RAID with DMDE, if you wish. However, I would first assess the health of your drives by examining their SMART reports with a tool such as CrystalDiskInfo.

http://crystalmark.info/software/Crysta ... dex-e.html

[jw1re]

Yes, I've been able to fully scan both of the drives, just partial files on both. And yes, if you could please help me do that, that would be absolutely wonderful!!!

[fzabkar]

Launch DMDE and uncheck the Show Partitions box.

Select Drive -> Construct RAID

RAID 0: Stripe
Stripe size: 32KiB or 64KiB or larger
Menu -> Add Disk -> select your first drive
Menu -> Add Disk -> select your second drive
OK

Select Drive -> Partitions

You should now see your assembled RAID volume. If you r-click $Volume 01 and select Open Volume, hopefully you will see your file/folder structure. Expand the $Root, r-click one of your larger files, and select Recover Files. Is this file OK?

You may need to experiment with the stripe size until you hit on the correct value.

[MindMergepk]

OP started new thread here, why ?
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=32804

[jw1re]

I was hoping to delete that other thread. I thought it wasn't letting me post to this one. If a moderator could delete that other thread it would be greatly appreciated.

[jw1re]

Launch DMDE and uncheck the Show Partitions box.

Select Drive -> Construct RAID

RAID 0: Stripe
Stripe size: 32KiB or 64KiB or larger
Menu -> Add Disk -> select your first drive
Menu -> Add Disk -> select your second drive
OK

Select Drive -> Partitions

You should now see your assembled RAID volume. If you r-click $Volume 01 and select Open Volume, hopefully you will see your file/folder structure. Expand the $Root, r-click one of your larger files, and select Recover Files. Is this file OK?

You may need to experiment with the stripe size until you hit on the correct value.

Okay awesome. One question

1) When adding the drives, I only have one plugged in at a time. How do I go about reading both drives? Do I need two separate SATA to USB docks?

[fzabkar]

I would connect both drives to the SATA ports on your computer's motherboard. USB introduces potential complications.

[jw1re]

I would connect both drives to the SATA ports on your computer's motherboard. USB introduces potential complications.

So you're saying the computer I have now? I haven't ever opened this computer up and I do not have the original computer these drives came from. I use SSD's in my new PC.

[data-medics]

You can still do it over USB just fine so long as there's no issues with the drives. But, in any event you'll need both drives connected at the same time and another third drive to copy the data onto. You're de-striping data, so can't do it from one drive at a time unless you image them both to files first.

[fzabkar]

One potential problem with USB docks is that some are configured with 4KB sector sizes. Also, if the dock is USB 2.0 rather than USB 3.0, then the transfer rate will be limited to abut 30 MB/s.

Could you install your first drive in your USB dock and then upload DMDE's Partitions window? This will tell us if your dock is suitable.

[jw1re]

One potential problem with USB docks is that some are configured with 4KB sector sizes. Also, if the dock is USB 2.0 rather than USB 3.0, then the transfer rate will be limited to abut 30 MB/s.

Could you install your first drive in your USB dock and then upload DMDE's Partitions window? This will tell us if your dock is suitable.

Okay, is this what you are looking for?

Attachments

[fzabkar]

That looks OK to me.