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jozbun · 08-27-2008, 12:05 PM

Good day!

I'm having a bit of a problem. that's fairly elaborate. First I'll state that I have experience in Desktop, Server, and Networking support. This is a little beyond my skills, and has resisted everything I have tried to date :(

First for those of you who do not want heavy detail:

Alienware Are51 M57 laptop "let the smoke out" out of warranty.
Laptop had 2 160 GB WD SATA HDDs on a RAID card (Upgraded from 2 40GB HDDs about 2 years ago)
The OS (C) drive was originally set up by the Alienware Manuf Imaging CD.
The Data (E) drive was set up using Drive Manager from within WinXP Media Edition. At no point do I recall setting any RAID properties.
After the Laptop went bust I bought a new Desktop I also bought a SATA to USB kit to recover the data from my Laptop drives.
The 2 Laptop Drives are not showing up as I expected when attached to the USB device
(FYI I have validated that the device works properly with some of my other older drives laying around)
One Drive: shows in Drive Manager, however shows as "Unknown", and "Unreadable".
The other drive comes up under drive manager as having unallocated space of the proper size.
I attached the drives to a SIIG Raid Card in my desktop with similar results.

So to me it looks like the Alienware RAID controller did something that is preventing the data from being read. Does anyone have any suggestions, or ideas for things I can try? Drivesavers is quoting me 1700-2K to recover, and frankly the data on there that I don't already have backed up isn't worth that.

Thanks

08-27-2008, 12:05 PM	#1 (permalink)
jozbun Registered User Join Date: Aug 2008 Posts: 8 OS: Windows XP Pro All latest Updates	A somewhat complex problem Good day! I'm having a bit of a problem. that's fairly elaborate. First I'll state that I have experience in Desktop, Server, and Networking support. This is a little beyond my skills, and has resisted everything I have tried to date :( First for those of you who do not want heavy detail: Alienware Are51 M57 laptop "let the smoke out" out of warranty. Laptop had 2 160 GB WD SATA HDDs on a RAID card (Upgraded from 2 40GB HDDs about 2 years ago) The OS (C) drive was originally set up by the Alienware Manuf Imaging CD. The Data (E) drive was set up using Drive Manager from within WinXP Media Edition. At no point do I recall setting any RAID properties. After the Laptop went bust I bought a new Desktop I also bought a SATA to USB kit to recover the data from my Laptop drives. The 2 Laptop Drives are not showing up as I expected when attached to the USB device (FYI I have validated that the device works properly with some of my other older drives laying around) One Drive: shows in Drive Manager, however shows as "Unknown", and "Unreadable". The other drive comes up under drive manager as having unallocated space of the proper size. I attached the drives to a SIIG Raid Card in my desktop with similar results. So to me it looks like the Alienware RAID controller did something that is preventing the data from being read. Does anyone have any suggestions, or ideas for things I can try? Drivesavers is quoting me 1700-2K to recover, and frankly the data on there that I don't already have backed up isn't worth that. Thanks