RAID 5 Problems with the recovery. Need Help.

[clubdegamers]

Hello I'm Diego from Argentina (...and sorry for my english)

MY SYSTEM:
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU Q9300 @ 2.50GHz, 2499 MHz, 4028 MB RAM
Intel Desktop board DP35DP with INTEL MATRIX STORAGE (ICH9R chipset)
3 x Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 750GB Hard Drive (configured with RAID 5)
2 Partitions: 160 GB and 1.2 TB
OS Windows Server 2008

MY MISTAKE:
My Intel Desktop board failed and I tried to rebuild my RAID 5 on a MSI K9N NeoV3 board with NVIDIA RAID controller.

CONSEQUENCES:
I couldn't read data on RAID 5 with the NVIDIA RAID controller board.
After that, when I received a new Intel Desktop board DP35DP, it couldn`t detect my RAID 5 anymore
(Hard drives are detected as Non-RAID disk)

USING R-STUDIO:
1) Hard Drives Properties (None of the hard drives have phisical damage)

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rs001sata1.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rs002sata2.jpg

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?image=rs003sata3.jpg

2) I created Virtual RAID5: I placed the 3 hard drives ordered like the motherboard's SATA ports order. I specified this settings:
- Block size: 64KB
- Blocks order: Left Asynchronous (Continous)
- Rows count: 3

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... ucture.jpg

3) I ran a detailed Scan.

http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... mation.jpg

RESULTS:
1) I can recover some few images.

(OK) http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... bgoldm.jpg

(Corrupt) http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... g58786.jpg

(Corrupt) http://img208.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... jblake.jpg

2) I cannot recover audio files.

http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... maniac.jpg

http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... tindol.jpg

3) I can recover a VHD File (Virtual Hard Disk Image) of about 7 GB and it works perfectly. Unfortunately, I cannot recover the other VHD File (Windows XP x86.vhd) with my personal files. It shows 0 at size.

http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... overed.jpg

4) Finally I tried changing the settings: I found no success changing the Blocks order.

http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... bgoldm.jpg

http://img242.imageshack.us/my.php?imag ... g58786.jpg

I wonder if there is another setting I must try (offset?). Can anyone give me some suggestions?
Thanks.

[Alt]

It looks like you have re-constructed your RAID 5 correctly with the right parameters and therefore R-Studio correctly recognized the folders/files structure on the virtual RAID5.
Please note that you have successfully previewed files from that folders/files structure.
The files that looks like corrupted one are from "Extra found files" which found by a different searching algorithm (also known as raw file search). Using this algorithm, R-Studio searches for file signatures and does not pay attention to folders/files structure. This is a less reliable file recovery algorithm, and you should not pay much attention to it if the folders/files structure is recovered successfully. See http://www.unformat-unerase.com/Unformat_Help/index.htm -> Data Recovery Using R-Studio -> Advanced Data Recovery -> Disk Scan -> Known File Types
If you want to find some particular file types like audio, video, etc files, you can re-arrange files by their extensions. See http://www.unformat-unerase.com/Unforma ... index.html -> Data Recovery Using R-Studio -> Mass File Recovery -> Find and Mark Multiple Files.

[clubdegamers]

Thank U very much for ur reply.

I want to add some extra information about RAID:

First I created only one 1.5TB Volume RAID5 with three 750GB Hard Drives (with INTEL MATRIX STORAGE, ICH9R chipset, Intel Desktop board DP35DP) - a hardware RAID5.
Then I installed Windows Server 2008 (I first loaded drivers RAID controller) and I created a 160GB NTFS partition. Then at Windows Disk Manager I created a 1.2TB NTFS partition.
So, I had one RAID5 Volume, and 2 NTFS partitions of 160GB and 1.2TB.

When my Intel Desktop board failed, I tried to rebuild my RAID 5 on a MSI K9N NeoV3 board with NVIDIA RAID controller (without erasing the information)
I installed OS in another HD and tried to boot up. But I couldn't read data on RAID5 with the NVIDIA RAID controller board. Before that OS tried to check disk to fix indexes and maybe that it made a mess on files structure.

After that, when I received a new Intel Desktop board DP35DP, it couldn`t detect my RAID5 anymore
(Hard drives are detected as Non-RAID disk)

Now this is what Disk Manager shows:

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/4761 ... rdedis.jpg

Disk0 Basic (online) -> (E:) 160.00GB RAW (active, primary partition) // 538.64GB (unallocated)
Disk1 Unknow (not initialized) -> 698.64GB (unallocated)
Disk2 Basic (online) -> 698.64GB (unallocated)

I had never changed any hard drive format with the Windows DisK Manager, so I really don´t know why it`s showing that configuration.

Thank U again.

[Alt]

Frankly speaking, it was not a very bright idea to try to rebuild your RAID on a different RAID controller. Different RAID controllers use different RAID settings. When your system were fixing something on the RAID, it could really make a total mess trying to adapt old data structure to the new RAID settings.
Frankly speaking, I see grim chances to recover large files.