Retrieving Data from a single hard drive (from JBOD Array)

[KoR_Wraith]

OK, I'm not sure on what the exact wording here should be but basically I have a PC with 2 hard drives that are striped in a JBOD Array (hope that makes sense). However, the motherboard recently died on me and I'm not going to be able to get a replacement for another week or two. I'd like to access the data stored on the hard drives of the PC (I have a secondary PC I can use to do this) but I'm not sure how to do it.

If I plug one of the hard drives into the 2nd PC it simply says the array has failed (as it does not have the other hard drive to complete it), and proceeds to boot from it's normal hard drive (without allowing access to the striped hard drive).

What I'd ideally like to have is my 2nd PC booting up as normal but once in XP allowing me to view the contents of one of the striped hard drives.

The 2nd PC has 2 SATA ports, meaning I cannot plug all 3 hard drives in at the same time (i.e. I can not have the 2nd PC's normal boot drive and the 2 striped drives (allowing the array to function). To do what I want to do the 2nd PC boot drive must always be in to allow XP to load (will not load off JBOD Array disks since their installation of XP is configured for a different motherboard, right? (I been too lazy to try :)).

One possibly solution I have thought of is to delete the JBOD Array off the drives, meaning each could maybe function as a single drive - but I don't know that for sure. Also, if I delete the Array would I be able to put it back on again when I get a replacement motherboard for my 1st PC with no loss of functionality i.e. plug the previously arrayed hard drives into 1st PC, creating JBOD Array, and it would all work exactly as it had before the motherboard failure? (the replacement motherboard will be identical to the one that failed)

So yeh...I'm pretty sure something is possible as wikipedia states that:

One advantage JBOD has over RAID 0 is in the case of drive failure. Whereas in RAID 0, failure of a single drive will usually result in the loss of all data in the array, in a JBOD array only the data on the affected drive is lost, and the data on surviving drives will remain readable.

To summarise: would like to access files held on the drives, not sure how to do so while maintaining the ability to simply plug them back into the 1st PC once it is working again. I'd be really grateful if anyone could clear up the situation for me.

P.S. Sorry if my wording is all wrong and my excessive use of brackets annoying.

[Sparda]

In a RAID 0 configuration, half the bits of every file are stored on one hard drive, and the other half on the other. You must have the RAID functioning properly to get the data back. Plug in the RAID'ed hard drives, boot your favorite live linux distrobution, and copy the files some where safe (this should work aslong as your RAID controler working under Linux).

[Dankiswess]

Try this :

http://getfreesofts.com/soft/449/39090/UFS...ofessional.html

It advertises that it can recover data off of broken RAID and JBOD. It's shareware so you've got at least a little while to try it out.

[KoR_Wraith]

In a RAID 0 configuration, half the bits of every file are stored on one hard drive, and the other half on the other. You must have the RAID functioning properly to get the data back. Plug in the RAID'ed hard drives, boot your favorite live linux distrobution, and copy the files some where safe (this should work aslong as your RAID controler working under Linux).

It's not RAID 0, it's a JBOD Array.

[nico]

In a RAID 0 configuration, half the bits of every file are stored on one hard drive, and the other half on the other. You must have the RAID functioning properly to get the data back. Plug in the RAID'ed hard drives, boot your favorite live linux distrobution, and copy the files some where safe (this should work aslong as your RAID controler working under Linux).

It's not RAID 0, it's a JBOD Array.

Whatever it is, you should try using a linux livecd like knoppix, systemrescuecd, to help you recover the data. There are many useful tools which can help you.