Recovering an Intel BIOS Raid 5

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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Paymon
Posts: 2
Joined: 17 Sep 2013, 18:12

Recovering an Intel BIOS Raid 5

#1 Post by Paymon »

I start by saying that TestDisk is a great tool. It has already helped me to recover some of my precious but deleted images from my camera memory cards, thank you. By the way, my paid version of the EasyRecovery software by Ontrack failed to do this and I did not hear back from customer support for a solution so here is a proof about the effectiveness of the TestDisk software.
My PC had a Raid 5 Intel BIOS setup before it was infected with a virus. I lost my Corsair SSD drive which I replaced with a new drive from OCZ and used Acronis Ture Image to recover an older image of the operating system so the PC is running again. The virus also affected my Raid 5 setup where I keep our family photos and videos. The RAID consists of 3 x 3TB HDDs. I get a message that 2 out of 3 drives do not belong to this Raid family during BIOS startup. I started checking the drive with TestDisk but I am getting a message 'Error reading sector *****'. What are the steps that I need to take to recover my files from the Raid drive? I have not done any formatting of the 3 HDDs or updating of the BIOS since the PC crashed.
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cgrenier
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Re: Recovering an Intel BIOS Raid 5

#2 Post by cgrenier »

You can either delete the actual Raid setup, recreate it and use TestDisk to rebuild the partition table
or you need to use a "raid recovery" software to virtually assemble your disks and ouput the result on a very big disk or another raid.
Paymon
Posts: 2
Joined: 17 Sep 2013, 18:12

Re: Recovering an Intel BIOS Raid 5

#3 Post by Paymon »

Thank you for your response to my posting here,
I used TestDisk to recover most of the lost files from the camera and camcorder memory cards/HD. The older files were previously backed up on a network drive so I was able to gain access to 98% of all the files. What 'raid recovery' software do you suggest to use for this application? Depending on the cost, user experience and the fact that TestDisk recovered most of the needed files, I may decide to go with the first option which is to delete the raid setup, recreate it and scan it with TestDisk.
On a different note, what raid setup and/or hardware should I use to better protect my data in future? Is there a hardware or software that would prevent this type of disaster?
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Fiona
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Joined: 18 Feb 2012, 17:19
Location: Ludwigsburg/Stuttgart - Germany

Re: Recovering an Intel BIOS Raid 5

#4 Post by Fiona »

Affordable RAID-Recovery-Software would be Restorer Ultimate from www.bitmart.net .

Fiona
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