Conundrum of getting data back

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LordCalin

Gawd
Joined
Oct 5, 2009
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901
So here's my data storage issue....

My computer is <bleeped>, to the point I can't even get into the bios, it just locks up if I try.
I can however still boot windows.

I'm building a new system, but this current one is raided, with 1 500gb JBOD, and 3 500's in raid 5, using nvraid. In my infinite wisdom, I never considered the hastles of getting my information back if the motherboard went.

The motherboard only has 4 sata ports, so all 4 are used.

Since I can't get into the bios, I can't change boot order to boot from cd.

What's the best option to get my data? i'm guessing the 1 JBOD should be readable in the new computer without any hastle... (i hope). But the raid 5, i'm not sure how to copy it....

I have 3 thoughts on it, and wondered which is considered best:
1) Break the raid, and install a 2TB drive on the open slot, copy everything off while raid is degraded and pray none of them error.
2) Copy everything over usb.... sooooooo slow
3) Empty the 500 JBOD drive as much as possible, and move everything off the raid in chunks.
 
I will preface this with, I am not much of a hardware guy. These may all be stupid suggestions.

Don't most systems include CD in the boot order somewhere? I would think if you disconnected the system drive it would move on to CD (and probably network) after that won't boot. If you didn't intentionally remove it from the boot order, it might be worth a shot.

Also, this may be a silly question, but how is the CD drive connected? Can't you throw a HDD there? Even if it's PATA maybe you have some old PATA drives laying around? Or a PATA->SATA converter? Maybe I'm the only one that keeps one of those around just in case.

Does your PC have a hotkey to pull up a boot menu? Again, most systems I have worked with have had F12 or F10 or something like that for just prompting for the boot device.

Good luck. At least you can still access it all, so things could be much worse.
 
Have you tried clearing the bios or reflashing it?

What is your motherboard's make/model?
 
unplug sata cable from cd drive and plug it into a new 2TB hdd... copy files over.
 
cd drive is IDE not sata... and no I havn't tried clearing the cmos, because if it resets, and I still can't get back in, I loose the raid, since default is for IDE compatability.

As for which board, it's the Asus P5N-D.
 
i would wipe the 500gb and fill that , then copy the rest off using usb, or just copy the rest off over the network to another PC.

either way will most likely be faster than filling the 500gb, Turing off the PC , coping off the 500gb ect and you are less likely to have problem if you are not turning your PC on and off all the time.
 
LordCalin said:
cd drive is IDE not sata... and no I havn't tried clearing the cmos, because if it resets, and I still can't get back in, I loose the raid, since default is for IDE compatability.

As for which board, it's the Asus P5N-D.
Click to expand...

If you can't access your BIOS, you may be able to detach all devices from it, then try accessing it. It's normally a device or piece of hardware that it does not fully work with that causes it to lockup. Once you figure out which device it is, then you should be able to change the BIOS.
 
Didnt know they made nvidia northbridges for core2. The RAID configuration data is usually stored in an alloted space on each of the member disks.

-Dont you have another computer that you can transfer your files to over the network?

-You can image each of the drives in linux: dd if=/dev/(your drive) of=/(something0...1...2...3... .img) bs=1M
Then if you mess up you can always reimage the drive with the backup.

-Get an usb external drive.

-Find a friend with a NV RAID capable motherboard.
 
yeah I probably will end up doing it over network, or to USB.... I was just trying to avoid those due to speed... since this machine virtual hosts web servers, time will be of the essence when I move everything to another computer... tho now that I say that I guess I could just start with the vxd's, get them running, then transfer the rest.
 
You never said what mobo you have?

Makes it difficult to give proper advice.
 
I don't know if IDE<=>SATA thingies work with latest drives, it may be worth a shot ? Alternatively, PCI(e) SATA card.
 
lol must have missed it :)

OK well you shouldnt need to enter the BIOS to boot from CD.

On that board you should be able to F11 during POST and a boot selection menu should come up and allow you to boot from a CD.

You can disconnect your 500GB jbod and get a 2tb.
Either reinstall windows to that drive, or boot to a linux live CD and copy your data off.
 
If both this system and the new computer have gigabit ethernet, you'll probably be limited by drive speed on a network transfer. If you don't have a gigabit router, you can connect them with a crossover for this one transfer.

Even with 100mb, you can transfer the 1tb in the raid 5 in roughly 3 hours if my math is right.
 
kevinpet said:
If both this system and the new computer have gigabit ethernet, you'll probably be limited by drive speed on a network transfer. If you don't have a gigabit router, you can connect them with a crossover for this one transfer.

Even with 100mb, you can transfer the 1tb in the raid 5 in roughly 3 hours if my math is right.
Click to expand...

lol, no, at peak it's 12.5MB/s, more realistically 11MB/s

@ 30MB/s, it takes about 1/2 hour to transfer 30GB. So 1TB at 11MB/s... I would be amazed if it finished in under 2 days, let alone 3 hours, I think your math is a bit off. ;)
 
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