Possible to copy data off RAID without setup details?

[jeremed]

I hate to ask for help in my inaugural post but I'm in a bit of a quandary.

I have a RAID set up in a secondary computer. Along with my general file storage, I've been using it as sort of a permanent archive for some of my finished work projects. Last weekend a scheduled backup didn't occur. Upon investigating I discovered that the CPU fan stopped working at some point and my processor burned up (That IS what it means when it smells like burning plastic and is all dark brown, right?).

The harddrives are ok. It's just the processor and possibly the motherboard that aren't working. Can I just put my RAID harddrives into another computer or external enclosure somehow and have them work?

The really bad thing is that I know nothing about the RAID parameters. I had a guide when I installed it so I pretty much just used the details given. I have two drives that have had their capacities combined into one visible drive in Windows. I'm using a RAID card installed in the computer so I can say that it's a hardware RAID.

I would be most appreciative if anyone has any suggestions.

 

[Nenu]

Oops, ignore this post, missed the bit where you said you use a RAID card.

Unless you know of specific motherboards with the same RAID chipset, bios versions and drivers that are compatible with the bios version you have, you are unlikely to get this to work.
Worst case scenario is that you will damage the RAID array by trying to get it to work on another motherboard!

It might be a good idea to ask on here if anyone else has the same motherboard with a cpu that you can borrow to recover your data.
You may need to blow the same BIOS to the board and use the same driver version you used.
The driver version shouldnt be a problem if you can boot the original OS hard drive.

 

[unhappy_mage]

I'm using a RAID card installed in the computer so I can say that it's a hardware RAID.

That's probably a good thing - the configuration of the array may be stored on the controller. I might give it a try - move the controller and cards to another machine, and see what happens - but then, everything I care about is backed up.

Is it a raid 1 or raid 0 array?

 

[jeremed]

Thank you both for your input.

My remaining working PC doesn't have enough free power supply connectors for the RAID harddrives. I guess if it comes down to it, I will just repurchase the barebones kit that I got when I set up the computer and put the harddrives in it.

unhappy_mage - The RAID type is 0. As for the RAID parameters being stored on the card, I noticed that every time the computer booted up it would show information about the RAID right after the initial information about processor and memory. Is that an indicator that the information is stored on the card perhaps? I don't even remember how I initially set the parameters - Maybe via some DOS based program.

 

[unhappy_mage]

A different power supply might be cheaper than buying a new motherboard combo. A Corsair HX620 is around $140, and will power most combinations of modern hardware.