Well, I just upgraded my main PC, which is (yes, still) running XP Pro. I have in it six hard drives . . . . two 74GB Raptors in a RAID 0 array and four 320GB WD drives in a software RAID 5 array (I hex edited a few files to enable software RAID 5). Everything was working perfectly when I powered the system off to install the new CPU/Mobo/etc.

Now, however, after reinstalling everything Disk Management Console shows two of my 320GB drives as status "Unreadable". Nothing I've done has been able to change this. Their SMART status is fine and they pass a full drive fitness test . . . . nothing physically wrong with the drives it would seem. I have a hell of a lot of important data on that RAID volume, and while most of it is backed up there are a few important things that have changed since my last backup (work files, pictures, etc). I need to somehow get at least ONE of these drives working so I can access the array again. Anybody have any advice and/or things to try?

11/3/2009 6:07:59 PM

Quote :

"Dynamic Drive"

dynamic disks are the devil. you should be able to rebuild the array with your raid management software assuming your parity data wasnt on one of the failing disks

11/3/2009 6:22:35 PM

The RAID management software is XP itself . . . . it was a soft RAID 5 volume (I edited a few files to allow for the same RAID functionality as Server 2003 under my XP Pro).

And the problem is TWO of the drives are showing as unreadable. I have to find some way to get at least ONE of them back up before I can rebuild the array.

11/3/2009 6:26:17 PM

Grrrr . . . . . DiskInternals RAID Recovery sees all the files on the array, but won't actually recover them unless I pay $250. No other software seems to work.

11/3/2009 11:31:27 PM

Quote :

"dynamic disks are the devil."

11/4/2009 2:24:41 AM

my guess is (and this is just a guess) that the two drives are being mismapped in the raid5 config.

AKA: On your old configuration, the raid configuration was: 1,2,3 (based on the PCI controller ordering).

On your new configuration, the raid configuration is being read 2,1,3

Since you're running RAID5 as a hack anyway, it seems like you may have to do some more hacking to get your array back into the right state. But I would give it a shot, this has happened to me a looooonnnng time ago.

11/4/2009 3:09:51 AM

Quote :

"dynamic disks are the devil."

fucking amen. i've had to stay up a few nights restoring shit from god damn dynamic disks.

11/4/2009 8:03:16 AM