Ari,

The Raptor is the only drive plugged in. I ran the quick -*test*-('") from the WD utilities, and it passed. I'm not running the extended -*test*-('"), and expect to format it after a successful completion. The Windows DVD is an OEM from Microsoft (purchased for installation on a new computer - that I built).

I'll let you know what happens...

Thanks!

David

Arlie,

First of all, let me apologize for mis-spelling your name in my earlier posts.

Now - there is not a "format" option in the Digital Lifeguard softwae that I see. There's an option to write 0's to the drive. Is that what you meant?

Thanks,

David

Arlie,

Thank you for your help - my system is behaving much better. I think I'm almost there.

I was not able to install Windows - it never recognized my disks - and that disturbs me a bit. However, I successfully installed 64-bit Ubuntu 7.10 Linux. Under Linux, I can see my individual disks, and my nvraid disks. I'm having trouble with just one thing now - my striped disks on the Sil controller.

I have 4 disks on that controller. Two are single disks, and the other two are striped together. However, when I go into the sil config in the bios startup, I see all four disks listed as "Reserved". The Linux kernel I'm using is supposed to have support for the Sil 3114 controller, and I believe that if I configure it properly, I'll be able to recover my data. Unfortunately, I'm not sue how to do this. When I try to create a striped array, it defaults to a size of 0GB (because the rest is reserved). When I increase the size, it warns that I'll destroy data on the disks.

What is the right way to do this?

Thanks again!

David

OK, do I take that to mean that you installed Ubuntu onto your Raptor when it was attached to the NVidia port? If so, then we're making progress.

Try the data lifeguard utility again with just the Raptor attached. The "write zeros" option is exactly what you want. That will completely wipe the drive clean, including the master boot record. Once that is done, your XP install should be successful onto the Raptor. If it is not, please note specifically where the installation fails and report that back to us exactly what you did to get to that stage.

Once the XP install is complete, use the motherboard CD and load the Sil Image drivers into a local directory. Shut down, hook the Sil Image drives back up, and set them up in BIOS, and then using the RAID setup utility following the POST. The RAID setup should recognize the striped array. At startup, XP should recognize them as new hardware and request that you load the driver. Point it to the directory you just created and the drives should come to life. You may have to initialize them. To do so, go to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Manager. Right click on each of the Sil Image drives and select initialize. At this point, you should be able to see them in Windows Explorer and recover their data. If you get really lucky, they will be intact, as they were not system disks.

Arlie,

Yes, I installed Ubuntu onto the Raptor while it was attached to the NVidia port. Further, I was able to mount my NVraid and my two individual disks on the Sil controller under Ubuntu.

Unless there is a particular reason to install Windows again, I'd prefer to skip that step. I've always liked Linux, and I should be able to run Photoshop in a VM. If I can also run Monaco Optix XR, my monitor calibration software in that VM (or work out an equivalent), then I'd prefer to keep Windows confined to the VM.

I believe that I now need to set up my Sil disks in BIOS, and then Linux will be able to access them.

I'll give that a try, anyway.

David

I haven't used a Unix machine in years, so I'm a bit rusty. However, assuming you have Ubuntu configured correctly with the Sil Image drivers, it should recognize your array as soon as it is set up correctly in BIOS and through the RAID setup utility. I think that is the step you were missing, both under Linux and under Windows.

Arlie,

Ubuntu is recognizing the striped partition, but it says the following:

NTFS signature is missing.
Failed to mount '/dev/mapper/sil_ahbhajaecfff': Invalid argument
The device '/dev/mapper/sil_ahbhajaecfff' doesn't have a valid NTFS.
Maybe you selected the wrong device? Or the whole disk instead of a
partition (e.g. /dev/hda, not /dev/hda1)? Or the other way around?

Do you have any suggestions for data recovery software that runs under Linux, and can (may be able to) recover broken ntfs filesystems?

Thanks!

dbr

You're beyond my working knowledge of Linux at this point. There may well be a way to do it, but I can't help you there -- the Ubuntu forums would be your best bet. That said, I think you can successfully install XP at this point and recover the data that way.

It appears that somehow my partition table for the SiI disk was removed. Linux can access the RAIDed partition, but sees no partition table. This is a change that occurred after removing the hard drives to try to install on the first one on the nvidia controller - before that, it was giving me warnings because the partition table on one drive looked too big (it was for the raid).

What *should* the partition table look like, for a 2-disk SiI RAID-0?

Thanks!

David

kinda jumping in randomly but what you expirenced with your ide drive is what i had with my sata's back at the end of august/september and when I had my ide drive connected was the only time i was able to get into the xp boot disk and think that i could have installed xp to it but didnt try and imo its stupid to run an OS off ide when my board has/had 4 sata ports

wish i could help, raid and linux are out of my area of knowledge

I can't answer that question...a) because I've never tried Linux on a desktop and because I've never used Sil Image for RAID purposes. I really think you're tempting fate trying to do this under Linux unless you get a Linux expert to help you. We run very little of it in here and therefore have very little expertise in that area.

You can try a PM to Roderick, as he does have some experience with Ubuntu on the 939 boards.

I may try something a little risky, but it still looks like my best alternative. For some reason, when I boot from the Windows installation disk, it still cannot see any of my hard drives. (It sees 4 unknown drives, and none has a disk in it. I'm still a bit worried about that.)

I'm going to install VMware Workstation, and XP under that. I'll attach the RAID disk to the Windows partition, and try some Windows data recovery software. File Scavenger is pretty good, but I don't have a license. I may purchase one if necessary - but is there a good free alternative you'd recommend?

Thanks!

David

Hi, file scavenger saved my bacon at least twice, highly recommended. As for the license..... well you don't really need one, if you take my drift. Utorrent is usually a good source...........Dee

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