I've got a computer with 4 sata hdd drives connected to them, and the
computer started to play up a little when I installed an update to
windows XP from the xp updates site for the raid controller. It kept
coming up with a bsod with an error I can't remember (think it was
something like IO_REQUEST_ERROR or something like that).
Anyway, I decided to try and set the drives up in a raid situation,
wondering if this would work? So I went into the bios, changed the
disk type to raid instead of ide (as my bios allows), and then
restarted. Upon restarting, i loaded up the raid software, and created
a striped raid set (I think that was what it was called). I loaded up
the machine, and it didn't boot up. So then went back into the bios
software, deleted this raid set and created a mirror raid set. booted
up, still nothing. got the "please insert a boot disk" error message.
so I deleted the raid set again, and left it as blank, and still
nothing.
then I went to the bios again, and changed the disk type to other
media. this loaded up to the raid software again, but still didn't
boot. i never made any changes to the raid sets. went back to the
bios, and put it back to ide type. then restarted. still no joy with
booting (need a boot disk still!).
So I think that I will need to re-install windows XP again. insert the
xp disk, and it loads up. come to the bit where it asks me to select
the partition to install to, and only the partition labels of disk 3 &
4 are showing! So by the looks of it, the partitions of disk 1 and 2
have been deleted?!?!?
So my question is, is it possible to recover the partitions and all the
data on them? I haven't written anything onto the disks at all since I
did it. So what is the best thing for me to do to have the best
fighting chance of recovering the partitions and all my data?
cumu2003@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi.
>
> I've got a computer with 4 sata hdd drives connected to them, and the
> computer started to play up a little when I installed an update to
> windows XP from the xp updates site for the raid controller. It kept
> coming up with a bsod with an error I can't remember (think it was
> something like IO_REQUEST_ERROR or something like that).
>
> This is the setup of the drives I've got:
>
> HDD1 - 6 partitions
> HDD2 - 1 partition
> HDD3 - 1 partition
> HDD4 - 1 partition
>
> Anyway, I decided to try and set the drives up in a raid situation,
> wondering if this would work? So I went into the bios, changed the
> disk type to raid instead of ide (as my bios allows), and then
> restarted. Upon restarting, i loaded up the raid software, and created
> a striped raid set (I think that was what it was called). I loaded up
> the machine, and it didn't boot up. So then went back into the bios
> software, deleted this raid set and created a mirror raid set. booted
> up, still nothing. got the "please insert a boot disk" error message.
> so I deleted the raid set again, and left it as blank, and still
> nothing.
>
> then I went to the bios again, and changed the disk type to other
> media. this loaded up to the raid software again, but still didn't
> boot. i never made any changes to the raid sets. went back to the
> bios, and put it back to ide type. then restarted. still no joy with
> booting (need a boot disk still!).
>
> So I think that I will need to re-install windows XP again. insert the
> xp disk, and it loads up. come to the bit where it asks me to select
> the partition to install to, and only the partition labels of disk 3 &
> 4 are showing! So by the looks of it, the partitions of disk 1 and 2
> have been deleted?!?!?
>
> So my question is, is it possible to recover the partitions and all the
> data on them? I haven't written anything onto the disks at all since I
> did it. So what is the best thing for me to do to have the best
> fighting chance of recovering the partitions and all my data?
>
> Hopefully someone can help me out on this :)
>
> Thanks in advance
>
> David
>
You're in big trouble pal ;-) Call in an expert and explain in much
greater and precise detail, than you have here, exactly what you have
done. You may just be in with a chance, but I doubt it.
You can't just switch between raid and non raid configurations; time to
get the backups out - you do have backups don't you?
> You're in big trouble pal ;-) Call in an expert and explain in much
> greater and precise detail, than you have here, exactly what you have
> done. You may just be in with a chance, but I doubt it.
>
> You can't just switch between raid and non raid configurations; time to
> get the backups out - you do have backups don't you?
>
>
> --
>
> Mark²³
Cheers for the well worth it msg...
If you can give me greater detail, then you know that I'd appreciate
it!!!
I suppose Active@ Undelete can help you, because it's restore methods
are really great. Try it indeed, u won't regret it. http://www.active-undelete.com/
You could try some recovery software which may find the partions but
its a long shot. Setting up raid means the BIOS writes to the drives
to set up the raid.
>Hi.
>
>I've got a computer with 4 sata hdd drives connected to them, and the
>computer started to play up a little when I installed an update to
>windows XP from the xp updates site for the raid controller. It kept
>coming up with a bsod with an error I can't remember (think it was
>something like IO_REQUEST_ERROR or something like that).
>
>This is the setup of the drives I've got:
>
>HDD1 - 6 partitions
>HDD2 - 1 partition
>HDD3 - 1 partition
>HDD4 - 1 partition
>
>Anyway, I decided to try and set the drives up in a raid situation,
>wondering if this would work? So I went into the bios, changed the
>disk type to raid instead of ide (as my bios allows), and then
>restarted. Upon restarting, i loaded up the raid software, and created
>a striped raid set (I think that was what it was called). I loaded up
>the machine, and it didn't boot up. So then went back into the bios
>software, deleted this raid set and created a mirror raid set. booted
>up, still nothing. got the "please insert a boot disk" error message.
>so I deleted the raid set again, and left it as blank, and still
>nothing.
>
>then I went to the bios again, and changed the disk type to other
>media. this loaded up to the raid software again, but still didn't
>boot. i never made any changes to the raid sets. went back to the
>bios, and put it back to ide type. then restarted. still no joy with
>booting (need a boot disk still!).
>
>So I think that I will need to re-install windows XP again. insert the
>xp disk, and it loads up. come to the bit where it asks me to select
>the partition to install to, and only the partition labels of disk 3 &
>4 are showing! So by the looks of it, the partitions of disk 1 and 2
>have been deleted?!?!?
>
>So my question is, is it possible to recover the partitions and all the
>data on them? I haven't written anything onto the disks at all since I
>did it. So what is the best thing for me to do to have the best
>fighting chance of recovering the partitions and all my data?
>
>Hopefully someone can help me out on this :)
>
>Thanks in advance
>
>David
OK, I've used Active@ Partition Recovery, which has recovered the large
partition on disk 2, but on disk 1 there are 6 partitions. Therefore,
i have an extended partition to allow me to create more drives. when I
can with active@ Partition recovery, it only recovers the drives it
finds as logical drives, not extended. So is there any way for it to
be able to recover the extended partion, and the the drives from within
that partition? Or is there any other software which can find the
drives???
I ran into a little program called "testdisk" which checked the disk,
and found all the partitions (including extended) and wrote them back
to the disk...
Not too sure as to whether all the data is still there or not though!
I've got to go through a task or re-installing windows, as it looks as
though it is about to load it ok, but it doesn't load anything and
hangs. so it could be that the boot is messed up, or that it hasn't
recovered the data. so I'm about to reinstall xp and find out...
Hopefully it's just that the boot up is messed up! If not, I guess
it's a case of trying to recover all the lost data!!!
Lost partitions on SATA drive 
Linear Mode
