HD Data recovery...

[VonErich Lives]

Anyone do this before and how was your luck?

I dropped off my HD today, cost $100.00 for them to look at it, and 900-3600 to recover depending on how much they have to do. Should have an answer on monday or Tuesday and data by Wednesday.

Of course, no gaurantee they will get it all, or any, or the stuff they get isn't corrupted.

setting up new HD now, once recovery is done, going to join a remote backup service and back this thing (at least my biz files) every night.

[KleptoKlown]

did it for a client once...it was something like 4000 bucks, and she got her info back. Its quite a process...or atleast the people that do it make it seem that way, so they can ass fuck you to get your info back.

if your biz files are that important, buy 2 of the exact same harddrives, and a raid controller, then get a tech to set them up so they mirror each other...basically, a continous backup of your info.

[VonErich Lives]

{lepto]{lown']did it for a client once...it was something like 4000 bucks, and she got her info back. Its quite a process...or atleast the people that do it make it seem that way, so they can ass fuck you to get your info back.

if your biz files are that important, buy 2 of the exact same harddrives, and a raid controller, then get a tech to set them up so they mirror each other...basically, a continous backup of your info.

I know how to raid and mirror... and my motherboard supports that (built this cpu myself a few years back and made sure it had on board raid).

I never did it, or even took the backup that seriously cause in 20yrs of computers, never had a HD die like that... software errors, memory problems, but never had a mechanical HD error...

oh well, live and learn...

[Matchbox]

Sad way to learn. I installed a removeable HD in our server. We run an automatic backup around 1AM every morning (the important data is stored on the server, it's was easier to set it up that way. Four people doing acct. with the same program..etc) We use the removable in casr there is a massive storm coming, we can take it out and move it to a safe location. Paranoid? YES! I hate having to recover lost data.

Anyway good luck.

[KleptoKlown]

I know how to raid and mirror... and my motherboard supports that (built this cpu myself a few years back and made sure it had on board raid).

I never did it, or even took the backup that seriously cause in 20yrs of computers, never had a HD die like that... software errors, memory problems, but never had a mechanical HD error...

oh well, live and learn...

lol, so you had the capability, and even bought a mobo with onboard raid...something that was still quite expensive a couple years back. Thanks for the chuckle.

[#BROKEN Hasney]

I had a mechanical faliure on an HD once. I literally got the disc and span it hard physically and then it started up. I copied it all over to a new HD thinking that one would die soon and kept that one in to use as tempory file storage and things. 6 months later it's still working

[Y2Ant]

What's this raid thing?

And how do you mirror stuff :shifty:

[Dazz]

Yeah I have Raid on my PC but I odnt understand what it is

[VonErich Lives]

{lepto]{lown']lol, so you had the capability, and even bought a mobo with onboard raid...something that was still quite expensive a couple years back. Thanks for the chuckle.

Yeah, I got the option when I built this thing a few years back... wasn't really that much more... that being said, I've never in 20yrs had a HD die like that and until the last 2+ yrs never had business stuff, so it was easier just to backup the stuff... but yeah, setting up a mirror is on the list of things to do...

As for the others who asked what Raid is... I'll take a shot, if I don't make sense klepto can maybe break it down.

basiclly, it's a way of connecting HD's and you have two options.

1) is mirror, get 2 hd's the same size and one basicly works as a backup incase the other fails.

2) is chain them, or link them... say you have 3 - 40g HD's, you can make 1 - 120g HD. It' then writes data over all 3 drives... I think there are 2 options.. the one I remember writes data bits across all 3... so if one fails the other have data or partial data and it can recrate the missing data...

KK, I'm sure I missed something there...

[Y2Ant]

is Raid like a program or something though, or some sort of hardware thing, I don't get it.

I have 2 HDs, if my main HD goes down, I can easily get everything back from my second HD, I am gonna buy two new ones though since these two are only 20 and 40GB, and i'm really starting to need the space.

[DS]

Raid is a hardware term where you take two harddrives and make them read as one. So if you raid a 250GB with another 250GB it would read as one 500GB drive.

[Y2Ant]

How do you go about doing that? :o

[DS]

If your motherboard supports it you pretty much just plug in the hard drives to the Raid controllers and then define the type of Raid you want. There is Raid 0 which is pretty much making 2 or more drives one and then there is Raid 1 where it mirrors your files from one drive to the other in case of lost information.

[VonErich Lives]

Raid is a hardware term where you take two harddrives and make them read as one. So if you raid a 250GB with another 250GB it would read as one 500GB drive.

Well, not in the case of mirroring. It reads as one 250gb HD, since the 2nd is a mirror.

As for the other raid, can you do it w/ 2? I've always seen it w/ 3. The main purporse isn't the increase of drive space, but a failsafe against a HD failure, it writes accross all 3 drives (much easier w/ a diagram) so if say one goes down, it can re-create the data from the info on the other two drives.

[DS]

Yeah, forgot to say it only read as one for the mirroring. But yes, you can use 2 for a Raid 0.

[CREDO]

Heres an ok guide on setting up a raid from http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?s=&threadid=251004


So you’d like to have a go at RAID 0? You know how to put a computer together and think RAID isn’t beyond you.
Maybe you’ve even had a go at it already, had to reload windows XP several times, pulled drives out, put drives back, plugged things in, stuffed things up, swore at the comp., kicked the cat,….then decided two ordinary IDE drives looked pretty good. I kept going until I got it working and decided we needed a simple (well almost) easy-to-follow guide to setting up RAID 0.

I have compiled this for people who want RAID 0 set up using Windows XP. I make no apologies for not having directions for other O/S’s or RAID configurations…I had enough trouble with this one!! One other thing…I don’t know if this method works with SATA RAID.

First of all…WHY? Well, there's a lot of controversy out there about this. I've had my RAID 0 array running for 5 months now and I'm "happy" with it, but really; I've only gained about 10% performance increase. Most desktop comp users won't notice ANY difference. It is fast when I'm doing video editing...no doubt about it, so I feel it was worth it. If you simply MUST have everything working at it's fastest capacity, and money is no object, then RAID 0 is worth a go. Before you start, have a read about RAID 0 at www.storeagereview.com (http://www.storeagereview.com/)

The downside is you have twice (or more) as much chance of your HDD array failing and approximately four (or more) times as much chance of your software stuffing up. So back up essential files to a separate HDD.

RIAD 0 FOR XP PRO.

INGREDIENTS.

• One computer ready for a clean install of XP Prof. with a FDD AND a CD ROM.
• One RAID controller card or preferably a motherboard with integrated IDE RAID on it.
• Two or more IDENTICAL Hard Disk Drives. ** Tip. Avoid Seagate Barracuda drives. The Internet is littered with stories of these drives not RAIDing together well at all. (Sad, because these are my favorite drives.) I used two Western Digital WD1200JB 120 GB HDDs and they go like the clappers.
• One extra “old trusty” HDD that you got from your old comp. If you don’t have an “old trusty”, then beg, borrow or buy a cheapy from someone…you’ll definitely need it.
• One copy of Windows XP Professional with SP1.
• One formatted and checked, functional Floppy.
• Three nice, rounded, glow-in-the-dark IDE cables. (Wellll…you can use the ugly ribbon ones if you must).
• A couple of “Y-splitters”. (From any computer parts supplier.) These are like double adapters for your Molex plugs. It’s amazing how quickly you run out of power connectors when you start plugging everything in.
• Your CD for the controller card or motherboard that contains RAID drivers.
• Manual for your RAID controller.
• Manual for your Motherboard.

METHOD.

1. Take a deep breath and study the RAID controller manual.

2. Install your Floppy disc into a functional computer and copy ALL the driver files for your RAID controller onto it from the Motherboard CD or Controller Card CD. Don’t copy any Readme.* or *.rtf files. (By all means read them though…they might contain amusing Taiwanese translations.)

3. Hook up your “old trusty” HDD to IDE 1 as “Master”. IDE 2 should have your CD ROM on it. Don’t hook up your RAID drives yet. Start your comp. and enter BIOS using the Del key. Go to Advanced BIOS Features and change the BOOT ORDER to boot from your CD ROM first. While you’re in there, enable the onboard RAID controller (if that is what you have) and set it to RAID (not IDE). Disable other RAID devices if you have them listed in BIOS.

4. Have your Floppy Disk with the RAID driver files on it handy. Insert your Windows XP Professional CD and restart your comp. and it should boot into Windows Setup. Partition and format “old trusty” and continue. HERE’S THE TRICKY BIT. As soon as the blue Windows Setup screen starts, look down at the bottom left corner and you will soon see a command to “Hit F6 to add third-party SCSI or RAID drivers.” Press F6 once, but don’t panic if nothing seems to happen. Setup will continue loading files into memory for a minute or so and then you will be asked to press “S” if you have other devices to load or “Enter” to continue setup. Press “S” key and it will then ask you to put your floppy disk in. Do it. A list of drivers will come up. Select the ones for Windows XP. Continue to setup Windows on your “old trusty” HDD.

5. Shut down your comp., unplug the power and install your RAID controller card (if you have one). Hook up your RAID drives, one to each socket (IDE 3 and 4?) and set them as “Master” (I’m just using two drives here).

6. Clear your comp’s CMOS cos it won’t be expecting all this new hardware and may spit the dummy on startup. (Don’t know how to clear CMOS? Look it up in the motherboard manual.)

7. Start up your comp. Press the Del key to enter BIOS.

8. One of the first things you should see is some info. on your RAID controller BIOS. Press whatever keys it asks to enter the RAID BIOS. Once in there, you set up your RAID 0 array. Make sure of three things. You must choose RAID 0. You must set the “stripe” or “block” size to 16K, 32K, or 64K or whatever you want. I chose 32K but if you do a lot of video editing or large file handling…use 64K. You must also make sure the array is “bootable”. Most BIOSes have a setting for this.

9. Exit this RAID BIOS.

10. The computer should then continue to enter its own BIOS. Make sure your RAID drives are seen in there and change any other settings you need to. (You might want to change the boot order so it boots from the HDD first…”old trusty” that is, instead of the CD ROM.)

11. Boot up to Windows.

12. Click Start, then RIGHT click on “My Computer” and then select and click “Manage”. The Computer Management window opens, then click on “Disk Management”. You should have a window with a graphical representation of your HDD and your new RAID array. It should read “old trusty” as Disk 0 and the RAID as one disk named Disk 1 with “Unallocated” on it. You may get a message saying “Disk is not initialized” (or was that ‘circumcised’? Hmmm!) To initialize it, just click where it says Disk 1.

13. Okay. Time to partition and format your RAID. First, select the RAID disk by clicking on the long box to the right of where it says Disk 1. A wizard may start to help you do the job. If not, right click on the RAID drive box you selected and choose “Partition”. Make it a primary, rather than an extended partition. You can partition your big, fat, juicy drive into smaller ones if you want…I didn’t. Right click each partition and choose “Format”. When the Format window pops up, make sure you have NTFS selected at the top. Then go down to the drop down box where Cluster Size is. It has “default” selected. Change this to 16K. THIS IS MOST IMPORTANT. There are lots of arguments as to what cluster size is the correct one. Have a look at Chainbolt’s post if you want to read more about them. I wouldn’t try a cluster size bigger than 32K. If you leave it at Default, Windows will format it to 4K size. This would mean your little RAID HDDs would work so hard, their poor little arms would drop off and you probably wouldn’t notice any speed increase at all.
NOTE:
Don’t be tempted to select “Quick Format”. I’ve never trusted these quick formats…just leave normal format selected and go work on your tan for an hour while the disk is formatting.

14. Beaut. You’re back and your tan is lookin’ good. Your RAID is too. It should read “Healthy” and have the formatted size above that. (My two 120 GB drives formatted to 223 GB instead of 240GB, but this is normal.) Select the RAID box again; right click on it and click “Mark partition as active.”

15. Shut down this window and the computer. Turn the power off.

16. Okay. It’s time to say goodbye to “old trusty”…sob, sniff. Pull the old hard drive out (gently does it) and tidy up all your wiring. Just leave the IDE 1 socket empty.

17. Clear the CMOS again. (WTF not again…Yes AGAIN!).

18. Turn on the power and start up. Go into BIOS again and fix ALL the settings how you want them. Change the Boot Order back to having CD ROM at No. 1. Put in the Windows XP Pro. CD again and continue booting into Windows Setup.

19. When it gets to “Where do you want to set windows up?”, Windows setup will give you three options. 1. To partition and format the drive using FAT32 (I think) 2. To partition and format the drive using NTFS and 3. Use the existing partition. CHOOSE THIS ONE.

20. YOU’RE DONE! Don’t forget to go back into BIOS after Windows is set up and change the boot order to RAID first. You may also like to re-install “old trusty” on IDE 1 as your back up drive for those important files.

Good luck. You may not get it first go, but at least this will give you a good chance.

I have read around that if your raid fails later dow the track you will need to replace the faulty drive with the exact same make and model drive to get the raid to boot. so as a storage option its not the best idea, its mainly for perfomance.