[RESOLVED] Recovering PATA Raid 0

[ProfessorU]

It's been a very long time since I've started a tech thread so I guess I'm overdue. I lost a motherboard last night. It was a little quirky for awhile, nothing that reseating the video card or RAM wouldn't fix, but it's no longer posting at all.
It was a abit KX7-333 Raid board (AMD socket A). The onboard RAID controller is a highpoint HPT-372. I hope to move all my data (about .7TB) including a 320GB RAID array, so I picked up a new ASUS A8N-SLI Deluxe board (plus new proc and PS) from newegg that also supports PATA Raid 0 onboard. Is this going to be as simple as install the two drives on the new controller and I get all my data back? Or am I going to have to find a highpoint controller or pay someone for data recovery? My last backup is about 90 days old and I really don't want to lose all that data. This board was my first experience with non-scsi raid so I'm a bit nervous.
Thanks!

[bistro]

I have never had to deal with a RAID transfer such as you describe, but I have a gut feeling that the RAID 0 array is not going to be recognized. Is the boot sector on that RAID array?

[ProfessorU]

No, it's just data. I boot from a non-raid drive for fear of problems like this.

[SuperSparks]

The PATA RAID on the Asus board is controlled from the Nforce chipset, and there is no realistic chance of it reading an array that was built using a Highpoint controller. In fact I wouldn't even hook the drives up as there is a risk of making the situation even worse. I think your only hope here is to get hold of a Highpoint controller.

[ProfessorU]

Aaah, my post is missing.
Posting again.
I'm thinking I should buy the bottom-of-the-line highpoint controller here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16816115001
Any thoughts? I'll post back when I know more.

[Steve R Jones]

If the data is really important you should probably try to find the exact same mobo...You might contact HighPoint and see what they say...

[bistro]

To be honest, I'm not so sure that an IDE RAID card, even by the same manufacturer as the RAID driver on your old board (Highpoint), is necessarily going to work. Unless those drivers are matched (and Highpoint has made several versions of RAID drivers), then you may be headed for trouble. But if you want to take the risk that it will not work, going for an inexpensive card is probably the way to go...you didn't lose much. If it does work, i would try to recover the data, copy it to another media or hard drive, then re-array the RAID using the onboard RAID driver (or just opt not to use RAID 0...you aren't really getting all that much performance boost with IDE RAID 0 anyway).

[ProfessorU]

There was a very noticeable improvement in frame rates for uncompressed SD video when I put those files on the RAID array.
I emailed Highpoint. We'll see if they get back to me. I'm going to buy that PCI card today so I can at least try things out. EBay hasn't had any of the KX7-333 boards listed with RAID since I've started looking. Hopefully soon.

[ProfessorU]

Great news! Here's what Highpoint had to say (less than four hours after I emailed them, I might add).

Hello,

Yes, this should be possible.
The RocketRAID 100 or 133 should recognize the array.

Regards,

HighPoint Technologies, Inc.

At 01:16 PM 10/9/2006, you wrote:
> I'm looking to move an existing RAID 0 array from a faulty ABIT KX7-333 motherboard with an onboard Highpoint HPT-372 RAID controller. Will a Highpoint RocketRaid 100 PCI card allow me to recover the data stored on my existing array created with the HPT-372 controller? Is there any hardware currently available that will allow me to recover the data?

Now I'm excited to get this show on the road. I'll post back when I finish the install.

[bistro]

There ya go....good luck!

[ProfessorU]

It worked!
No hitches
No glitches
The board identifies itself in BIOS at a HPT-372, which I didn't expect but that's probably why it worked so well. The new PS didn't have enough plugs so I have the new array powered externally, but at least it boots . I even got all my drive letters straight in windows (B through M).

Thanks for the help!

[SuperSparks]

You're very welcome. It's good to hear that you got it all sorted out