I lost my Grey's Anatomy collection...

September 26, 2006 6:32 PM

For whatever reason, my RAID 0 array has crashed. Help me recover it, please?

The RAID controller is a Silicon Image 3112 chip on an Asus A7N8X-Deluxe motherboard. The harddrives are PATA Western Digital Caviar, functioning through PATA->SATA converters. I'm running Ubuntu linux.

I'm looking for some sort of utility that might let me start the process of recovering the data. Best would be something that lets me mount the (possibly partially corrupt) volume in linux. Alternately, something that attempts to rebuild the array would also work.

Since the actual array is 220GB, requiring me to dd the contents of the disks elsewhere to work on them probably isn't going to work out. I need to work on them in place.

I'm really not looking for recommendations of data recovery folks. I don't have the money for it, and this data, while it represents 3 years of software development work that I'd prefer not to lose, isn't worth the $1.5k+ range that most places quote for a RAID0 recovery.

posted by Netzapper to computers & internet (8 comments total)

RAID0 is striped, so good luck recovering any data.
posted by b1tr0t at 6:34 PM on September 26, 2006

Oh, I fully understand that a real recovery is not likely to happen. I'm looking for some tool that will at least let me read the (probably corrupt) striped data.

Shit, I'll take a partially-functional, experimental, probably-destroy-everything kernel module... I really don't care... I just want the tools to make an attempt.
posted by Netzapper at 6:38 PM on September 26, 2006

Raid Reconstructor fits the bill -- but you're really not likely to recover anything. Why in the world would you use Raid 0 for something like software dev?
posted by Jairus at 6:45 PM on September 26, 2006

Netzapper, send me an email.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 6:45 PM on September 26, 2006

Jairus: Because I'm an idiot, apparently. But, thank you for the utility! It's going to be a little problematic to find someplace to stick the data... but, it's better than the nothing I have now.

Civil_Disobedient: Done.
posted by Netzapper at 7:01 PM on September 26, 2006

Hard drives are pretty cheap these days, and you're going to need a new one anyway. Why not pick up a 500GB drive and dd to that? It would allow for more experimentation to get your data back.
posted by dweingart at 7:10 PM on September 26, 2006

Since the actual array is 220GB, requiring me to dd the contents of the disks elsewhere to work on them probably isn't going to work out. I need to work on them in place.

3 years of software development work

You've been working on something for three years, and

(a) you've never backed it up
and
(b) you don't think it's worth the $80 that a 300GB drive costs at NewEgg so you can have more than one chance at recovery if the first try doesn't work?


Why are you bothering to try and recover it at all, then? This must not be very important data. I'm thinking porn, personally.
posted by dmd at 7:40 PM on September 26, 2006

There is a bunch of porn on that array. I rather enjoy pornography. But, seriously, it's my /home. The software development is all various personal projects, some of which are backed up, some of which aren't.
posted by Netzapper at 7:58 PM on September 26, 2006