Need Help! RAID5 HPT374 EPOX BROKEN... Desesperated...Please!

[stormbyte]

Hello,

I'm running a RAID5 3 Disks 250Gb on my computer on EPOX 4PCA3I+ Motherboard with HPT374 chipset (and a fourth drive configured in space system).

Unfortunately I had the following problem:
- when my computer had a cold reboot, the BIOS HPT374 told me to launch a "REBUILD" ... I was afraid and I stop my computer...
- so hopping to simply find a full running ARRAY without using 'REBUILD" I've done the following actions: I tried to change the position of the drives (and jumper position) and put new cables (ATA) and I restart it for each configuration... I tried once to put only 2 disks and reboot: here, the computer continue after the BIOS boot, and Windows appears!! I shutdown the computer and I HAD THE PROBLEM:

- my computer SEE PHYSICAL THE 3 DRIVES BUT ONLY 1 DRIVE WITH CORRECT ARRAY NAME and I've no more possibility to REBUILD it, only DESTROY action!! :-((((

- WHAT CAN I DO NOW?

I tried to take 3 disks and put them on standard IDE connector, and use software to retrieve my files... (I tried demo version of FileScavenger, Raid reconstructor.... but it seems no way).

On this computer, I've all photos of my baby since he was born (2 years ago), I've backup and I'm really disapointed:

PLEASE HELP!!!

Thanks in advance:!!!!!!
Christophe, hoping since 1 month to retrieve my baby photos on this f**ck**g raid system! ;-))

[stormbyte]

Just more informations about the context:
- when trying 3 disks on standard IDE connectors and a dedicated software (File Scavenger for example), I see that 2 drives contains a partition. One is not recognise anymore (like an unformatted drive)
- so physically the 3 drives are working, 1 seems to have no "correct" RAID informations anymore (but I'm not sure).
- I was able to restore 5 files ONLY ;-( for other files I (800.000 files) I see information whith uncorrect location (ex: c:/unknown/real second level directory) ... when trying to restore it's not working anymore :-(

- using "RAID Reconstructor" software it's searching different RAID possibilities (blocksize, parity, etc...) but "Results are not Significant" ... what can I do? Is there any parameters?? If it's necessary, I'm ready to buy a new 500Go HDD to construct with this software a "clone" of the 468Gb RAID, and use

ANY IDEAS? INFORMATIONS???? I've no backup of all the pictures & videos of my baby that was on this RAID system 'cause I was SURE that I'll never have any problem with RAID 5... I'm desesperated! Please...!

[Armo]

does this epox board do the raid 5 nativley or is it on an expansion card? something like that happned to me when my drivers for my raid exploded, it saw all of my drives individually. a posibility is a new software package called Archive@ File Recovery, it has a function to attempt to raid disks together again to get data off, they have a trial version for free but you cant recovery anything bigger than 32KB, the pro version is $50.

[stormbyte]

thanks for your answer. This Raid 5 HPT374 is natively on the motherboard. (unfortunately it's v3.01 and HPT made new 3.04 but on this 2 years motherboard EPOX does not maintain BIOS anymore and it's integrated in it... :-((

If had have any chance with this software, I'll try it!!! I'll check first for smallest files in the trial version if is working in my configuration.

IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER IDEAS do not hesitate! Thank you Armo!

WHAT ARE THE BEST SOFTWARE FOR RAID 5 RECOVERY? (even professional versions)

[Armo]

when i made a script here at work that remotly mirrored directories and forgot to add the ignore extra files, it deleted like 80 gigs worth of stuff from a spanned 2 raid 5 array volume ( hahahahaha, it was really funny when it happened ) i bought that Archive@ File Recovery, which has like a raid simulation setting in it, i was able to recovery all of the files except PST files from the array. but since the array its self wasnt damaged the software could do that without using that raid function.

give the trial a go and read all the guides and stuff, but as far as i can tell, the raid function allows you to re-combine 2 or more disks into a simulated raid complete with variable stripe sizes. make sure you do a super scan though it takes a long time but you probably will find mroe files that way. good luck and let us know how it goes.