Delboy52 Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 My external raid enclosure died some weeks ago. I then stored one in an anti static bag, the other was installed to the desktop so the data could be used and added to. Now a new different model raid enclosure has been supplied from an RMA claim. I put the desktop HDD back into the new enclosure's bay 1, and the stored HDD into bay 2. The enclosure was set to Jbod from the box so I reset this to Raid 1. I think this was the fatal mistake. Both drives are now inaccessible, but are visible to Windows disk management as "unallocated space." I used Partition Wizard to try and recover one of the drives. The partition is now identified as RAW with Partition Wizard able to see the files and folder structure, but Windows will not assign a drive letter until formatted. The data is precious, I'm bricking it as the files simply must not be lost!! I'm borrowing a large 2TB HDD from work over the weekend to try and copy the RAW partition over to the borrowed HDD. Don't know if I will get access to my files this way yet. Any suggestions what else I can do? I may have to take it to a data recovery firm and they charge from about £80.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wez Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 If the drive hasn't been completely formatted you should be able to recover your data, you would need to find some recovery software or read up on how to rebuild the partition table. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delboy52 Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 The drive hasn't been formatted or written to. I used Partition Wizard on one of them and it converted the unallocated space into RAW. Been reading but there is so much opinion I don't really want to experiment without good advice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ubersonic Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Testdisk might be able to recover the partition table data (its pretty good) if it cant the photorec program that comes with it will be bale ot recover the actual files from the disk but thats messy and quite time consuming. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chucky_waR Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 I would suggest testdisk as well mate. TestDisk is a free software that will allow you to help recover lost partitions and repair the partition table corrupt your hard drive. You can dowload it here.. http://www.techarena.in/download/hard-disk-utilities/testdisk.htm Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Delboy52 Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Thanks guys! I got it fixed now. I booted the computer up again when I got home and chkdisk fired up by itself identifying a drive letter and doing it's thing. The HDD is fine in Windows so shut the PC down, put the 2nd drive in and did the same process. Seems turning the PC off after PW has rebuilt the partition was a missing step I didn't do last night. Restarting wasn't enough. The 2nd drive didn't need chkdisk, it was straight in with a drive letter and all files/folders restored. Holy christ... All my showreel work from the video games I've work on is backed up on these raid drives along with my wife's wedding photography archive. A data company has quoted £120 to restore a 1.5tb drive for which there are 2 of them. Would that be £240 to run some free software from the net and chkdisk? Awesome! Now I can guilt free continue searching for someone to build exhaust headers for me Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abz Posted March 29, 2012 Share Posted March 29, 2012 Thanks guys! I got it fixed now. I booted the computer up again when I got home and chkdisk fired up by itself identifying a drive letter and doing it's thing. The HDD is fine in Windows so shut the PC down, put the 2nd drive in and did the same process. Seems turning the PC off after PW has rebuilt the partition was a missing step I didn't do last night. Restarting wasn't enough. The 2nd drive didn't need chkdisk, it was straight in with a drive letter and all files/folders restored. Holy christ... All my showreel work from the video games I've work on is backed up on these raid drives along with my wife's wedding photography archive. A data company has quoted £120 to restore a 1.5tb drive for which there are 2 of them. Would that be £240 to run some free software from the net and chkdisk? Awesome! Now I can guilt free continue searching for someone to build exhaust headers for me We use to have a forensic recovery department onsite who charged up to £1,000 on data cover on laptops whilst at was at Deloitte. It all depends on the degree of recovery, if it is just a case of sorting out the partitions and making raw data available some tools are online which you can use free of charge. The better tools cost money, and they are not cheap! Chkdisk would have only looked at fixing bad sector headers or corruptions on disk, but it is a good tool. It is when the drive has mechanically failed it would have turned very expensive, I checked out there lab & they had a proper fridge for putting HDD's in and also what were like large microscopes where they would solder back circuit boards or change small components. Sounds like you had a lucky escape... remember, always have 3 copies of the important data Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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