accessing RAID 0 drives off a Non-raid running WinXP after RAID WinXP

[Teddyki]

Hi,

Here's the FULL story, I was running a RAID 0 with Windows XP, but the windows boot got corrupted and I couldn't access anything on there at all. (NTLDR is missing.) I tried Roadstarter to fix it but it said "hal.dll is corrupted can not fix"

 

I don't care so much about fixing this boot corruption, all I care about is accessing the files I lost on that RAID 0 set up, in any way.

 

What I did was install WinXP on a 3rd HDD (the WD 250gb) and tried running various File Recovery programs (PC Tools File Recover 6.2.0.16, PC Inspector File Recovery) to try and access the files on the RAID 0 setup, every program I tried had minimal success. I've heard good things about UBCD but don't know much about that, how to use it or it's effectiveness.

 

So right now I'm on the 3rd HDD with winXP trying to access the raid setup. The setup isn't showing up in 'My Computer' at all either, my brother seems to think that if I can figure out how to get it to show up in My Computer I can just explore the files and copy them over.

 

Any thoughts? Thanks a lot, I really really appreciate it, a lot of important files were on that setup, and I've already gone out and bought an external HDD for backing up once I hopefully figure this out.

[Praz]

Even though you are using a single drive in order to access the RAID array the RAID drivers need to be installed.

[Teddyki]

The same RAID Drivers I installed via floppy when I first set up the array? How do I install those with out reinstalling Windows on the 3rd HDD? Or is that the only way to do it?

[CPDMF]

You can use the nvidia drivers you downloaded when you installed on the single drive.

 

Enable raid on the ports your 2 raid driver are on, install chipset drivers including raid drivers from nvidia setup.

 

You should be able to repair your raid array as well. When running a RAID array only use Windows CD to repair, you also have to load up the floppy to get to the recovery console to be able to repair your array. Don't do this until you recover your files though.

 

here's a link that will give you some tips on getting it working again.

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_haldll_missing.htm

[Chump]

Hi,

Here's the FULL story, I was running a RAID 0 with Windows XP, but the windows boot got corrupted and I couldn't access anything on there at all. (NTLDR is missing.) I tried Roadstarter to fix it but it said "hal.dll is corrupted can not fix"

 

What about an in place upgrade / windows repair ? basically lay a fresh copy of XP over the dead one which should get you back in to your array long enough to save your data it has worked for me before on my arrays just remember to install the F6 RAID driver.

 

Heres the instructions on how to do the repair on a single drive I just plucked from Google.

 

http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm

 

Hope this helps

 

CN.

[Teddyki]

Allright,

 

I just tried to repair install winXP on the raid array using that guide, but the option to repair wasn't there (warning 2)

 

I also tried going into recovery console and typing 'copy d:i386ntldr c:' and either get an access is denied or BSOD

 

Next I did a repair install on the 3rd hdd but this time loading the raid drivers to see if the array would show up in my computer, but no luck :/

[Teddyki]

any suggestions?

 

I didn't install the nvidia raid drivers from my motherboard CD, I have 3 options and I'm not sure which one, if any, I need:

 

SIL3114 RAID5 Driver and Utility

SIL3114 RAID Drivers for System Installed with Non-RAID5 ROM

SIL3114 RAID utility for System Installed with Non-RAID5 ROM

 

if I click on the first it asks if there are any Non-Raid drivers and I click yes because I'm running this XP on non-raid to try and access the RAID, then this message appears:

"Warning! Non-RAID drives will become invalid, continue? click yes to install RAID5, click no to install RAID10"