I cleared MBR by accident on raid0. How to save data?

[zzz2496]

My custom built SAN setup costs around $800 (with OS in a flashdisk) each, somewhat "proper" SAN, though I don't use redundant power supply. Don't MIX between SAN and NAS, those 2 aren't the same "beast", NAS's capability is VERY LIMITED, it serves at "file" level, SAN OTOH serves at block level.

$1600 is a lot cheaper than 6 years worth of DATA IMHO...

My SAN spec:

MB: Intel Q57 Desktop board (I need vPRO).
Proc: i3 (forgot the speed).
Mem: 1GB
HDD: 3x WDC Green 1TB, 2 on RAID 1, 1 standing by as hot spare.
Case: Cooler Master 690
PS: Corsair TX 650W

The SAN box is running headless, and all power and reset button unplugged from the motherboard. Fully operational through remote admin, using vPRO/SSH/Web interface.

zzz2496

 

[Dushmanius]

$1600 is a lot cheaper than 6 years worth of DATA IMHO...

You couldn't be more right but is it cheaper then 2TB WD Green ($110) + 200 lifetime premium megaupload?

Granted megaupload is not the best solution (or, unfortunately it is) but still 300$ vs 1600$ (+ power consumption on an yearly basis + wiring) and you still get pretty decent backup.

 

[zzz2496]

$1600 is a lot cheaper than 6 years worth of DATA IMHO...

You couldn't be more right but is it cheaper then 2TB WD Green ($110) + 200 lifetime premium megaupload?

Granted megaupload is not the best solution (or, unfortunately it is) but still 300$ vs 1600$ (+ power consumption on an yearly basis + wiring) and you still get pretty decent backup.

Well, compared to the time you spend backing up at ~300KB/s? I run my backups at 40MB/s, faster if I backup large chunks of data (several GB each). In emergency situations, 40MB/s is very fast compared to megaupload, not to mention if somehow someway your ISP went belly up, and you need other means to reach megaupload - that won't be pretty...

zzz2496

 

[Dushmanius]

Megaupload has unlimited upload speeds, or I didn't hit their limit yet with 5Mb/s.

All in all both of these solutions have it's ups and downs. : )

 

[zzz2496]

Megaupload has unlimited upload speeds, or I didn't hit their limit yet with 5Mb/s.

All in all both of these solutions have it's ups and downs. : )

Agreed

 

[surfasb]

I use Backblaze. They are a relatively new company. Unlimited Storage for $5 a month.

Online Backup from Backblaze

 

[kewl1]

Thanks for injecting some common sense

Well I think I really learned somethjng here. I surfed in because my hot shot RAID 0 array broke and this was the second time in about 2 years. Both times I was using WD Raptor drives, 10,000 rpm. I thought these would be good for manipulating digital home movies. I'm not a gamer.

To have these things go bad is siclkening. My work was on them too although I do back up with Ghost. Today I went out and bought a C$53.00, 500 gig drive to pair with another one I already have but this time for a RAID 1 set up. I have lots of 1000 gig drives as well as USB drives that I can use for storage.

Thanks for opening my eyes. RAID 0 just ain't worth it. And if I go by the Windows 7 Performance test it doesn't even improve performance by 1 iota. Now that was a real surprise.

 

[digibalance]

Thank you in advance for the Hiren's mention - I'll be trying to recover my MBR now for my RAID 0. I'm in a similar predicament, except it's just my wife's comp and I don't have 6 yrs of work in the balance.

My machine booted to a blank screen with blinking cursor. Couldn't F8 and the Windows 7 recovery disk couldn't find an OS to repair.

I found that somehow the bios got set to ACHI instead of RAID. I set it back, but not before I farted around with partition wizard and set active some piece of whatever it translated my RAID 0 to. Honestly, I had just forgot I had a RAID when I did that. So I'm pretty sure I corrupted the MBR or perhaps worse.

Anyway, this could be premature, but I'm hoping I can recover it with the mbr fix on Hirens. A CTRL+I, still shows the RAID 0 active, but a boot after fixing the bios brings me to the DRMK v8.00 whatever that is... Windows 7 recovery still shows no OS to repair

I'll post a followup when I'm done, downloading the Hiren image now.

BTW, you could always go with a RAID 10 (striped and mirrored) if you want speed and reliability, you just need 2 more drives. But the previous posts about keeping data on a seperate array (or no RAID at all) is probably good advice.

 

[digibalance]

Well - It's not entirely fixed, but with MBRfix, I was able to set the correct partition to active and now atleast the system starts to boot Windows 7. It blue screens quickly with the error: unmountable_boot_volume

The windows 7 recovery disc indicates that the boot sector is corrupt, I'm not sure how to fix that.

I'm waiting for the Windows 7 os cd to come in the mail. When I get it, supposedly a repair from the install disc will fix my probs.

I seem to be a step closer.

 

[Golden]

Why not burn your own copy of the Windows 7 installation DVD by downlaoding the ISO from this site - its excatly the same as the one you have ordered:

Official Windows 7 SP1 ISO from Digital River « My Digital Life

 

[digibalance]

Sweet - ty, I'll try that. I'm out of blank DVDs... thank you 24hr CVS.

 

[digibalance]

Well that did not work. I burned the .iso that Golden recommended and attempted a repair from the Win 7 installation disk. The repair fails with the same boot sector problem.


I went to the command prompt from the repair GUI after the failure and ran:
chkdsk / r c: which appears to run fine
&
bootrec /fixboot (as well as the other switches) which don't seem to fix anything.


After doing that, I try to boot normally and the system blue screens immediately after the windows logo starts with the error:
unmountable_boot_volume (only able to see that by using the "don't reboot on error" option at F8)


One thing to mention: At the repair menu, it does find a windows 7 installation, but it's on drive e: and not c: ? I'm perplexed by that...

Perhaps I'll try to boot into "mini Windows XP" from Hiren's bootCD and run the disk manager to have a look at what it can see?

Otherwise, any other ideas, I feel close - but for all I know the RAID is just totally hosed.

I've fiddled with the active partitions and I've fiddled with fixing mbr's on the partitions, so I could be all messed up now. Drive 0 seems to have 3 partitions, 2 small ones, and then a large one. I'm not sure which one should be the active and which one needs the mbr for windows 7.


Ty much!