[mercid]

Hey all,

After a string of bad luck with my computer the hard drives died, yep thats right both of em, master and backup, dead.

I lost all my files, everything for work, music, ect. ect. So alas, now is the time to finally convert everything to .ape out of my cd collection.

Any help on the matter, where i can find files and general tips are greatly appreciated.

-jeff

 

[vwap]

Quote:

Originally posted by mercid Hey all, After a string of bad luck with my computer the hard drives died, yep thats right both of em, master and backup, dead. I lost all my files, everything for work, music, ect. ect. So alas, now is the time to finally convert everything to .ape out of my cd collection. Any help on the matter, where i can find files and general tips are greatly appreciated. -jeff

before they're declared dead, what makes you so sure it's the drives that are dead, and not the controllers or something on the motherboard that's fried?... I've seen plenty of hard drives fail, but rarely, if ever, do two fail at the exact same times.. [unless they were the same drives coming from the same batch, running in the same conditions for the entire life..]

... just wondering... so don't throw the drives out yet...

And you can find more information on .ape and Monkey Audio www.monkeysaudio.com.

 

[wallijonn]

next time you may want to try caddies.

if both drives are on the same ide channel, it could be the ide channel. quess you should swap in the backup into the channel that has your cdrom drive (after disconnecting and making it a master).

 

[bootman]

Don't throw the drives out yet!
You might be able to get the data from them.
Vwap might be correct in thinking that the controller might be bad instead of both drives.
(now if you was running a raid 0 or striped set and the data got corrupted...

you might be f'ed)
Striping is ok to do with the partition that holds the OS, applications and or swap file
but not for data just because of the possibility of corruption.
(you can always reload the OS and apps, its the data that you can't get back easily)

If I was building a striped partition I would add an additional drive just to hold the data files.
(if its critical data then I would mirror (raid 1)not stripe or (raid 0) the data partition too, but now your talking 4 drives min.)

 

[CaptBubba]

Bootman, that's where RAID 1+0 comes in handy, or RAID 5, depending on the numbering system used and if my memory is any good. Basically Striping+Mirroring. The data stripes are mirrored on at least two discs. So, four drives min, but speed and reliability. IIRC, it is what some critical servers use (except with 12+ 10k rpm SCSI HDs).

Check the HDs out on another computer. Also try setting you HD controller back to ATA-33 or some slower speed, I've seen that allow for data retrival out of an otherwise doomed controler. If you've already reformated...you are in trouble.

I personally want to get a set (2-4) of 120GB IBM deskstars and make use of my onboard ATA-100 RAID controler, but I'm broke. If I did that, however, I would use my current HD as backup.

 

[Anders]

Seems improbable that both drives broke down at the same time. Could be an error on the disk controller, which often is integrated on the motherboard. There are sepatate controller cards that can be installed in the computer but if there is a severe error on the motherboard the problem could persist.
You could also take out the disks and install and test them in another computer.
If you think this sounds too complicated, contact a service technician. There is a good chance that the files on the hard drives are undamaged.

 

[bootman]

Quote:

Originally posted by CaptBubba Bootman, that's where RAID 1+0 comes in handy, or RAID 5, depending on the numbering system used and if my memory is any good. Basically Striping+Mirroring. The data stripes are mirrored on at least two discs. So, four drives min, but speed and reliability. IIRC, it is what some critical servers use (except with 12+ 10k rpm SCSI HDs).

Yeah I know, but who sets up a raid 1+0 or raid 5 on desktops but us hardcore computer geeks?

Actually with the crop of cheap IDE raid cards
I'm sure more people can but with scsi it can get pretty expensive!

Raid 0 is popular now because of all the built in ide raid controllers in motherboards
but users want speed (raid 0) not necessarily safety (raid 1 or 1+0).
The more common IDE raid cards and motherboards can't do raid 5 btw.

 

[vwap]

Quote:

Originally posted by bootman Yeah I know, but who sets up a raid 1+0 or raid 5 on desktops but us hardcore computer geeks? Actually with the crop of cheap IDE raid cards I'm sure more people can but with scsi it can get pretty expensive! Raid 0 is popular now because of all the built in ide raid controllers in motherboards but users want speed (raid 0) not necessarily safety (raid 1 or 1+0). The more common IDE raid cards and motherboards can't do raid 5 btw.

heh.. I don't think there's really many "consumer's" out there that even bother with RAID-5. It's more the premise of,.. "I just bought 4 - 120GB drives.. and for what? I'm going to use all 480GB of it.. why would I want to RAID-5 it and only have 120GB?".. of course this doesn't really work 'cause no "normal" consumer would buy 4 - 120GB drives.. but still..

I'd just go RAID 0+1... IIRC, that's only 3 drives, and you get mirroring and striping, right?...

It's been a while since I looked into RAID... since, well, I'm a "normal" consumer and don't need 4 - 120GB drives.

 

[averydonovan]

CaptBubba, avoid IBM hard drives like the plague. Many of their drives made within the last few years have had serious problems with bad sectors and then just dying. I have a friend who just went through that experience himself, and he waited a month to get a new drive. His died after about a year. I think it was a 40GB 75GXP, IIRC. You might want to look into Western Digital. Their older hard drives were pretty bad, but it seems in the last couple years they have switched with IBM for the best quality hard drives (IBM used to be the best).

mercid, try your drives on your secondary IDE channel like everybody else has been suggesting. Also, try a different cable. It is very rare for IDE cables to go out, but definately possible.

 

[wallijonn]

if all you want is speed, then get a 8MB cache Western Digital drive (like the wd1000jbb, wd800jbb, wd1200jbb). if you have your data in raid 0, if one drive gives out, you'll still loose all your data. the ide raid controllers are unreliable. i have two Promise ATA100 cards you can have for free. (When W2k SP3 came out, scsi/ide controllers went dead throughout the land).

i set up a friend of mine with two caddies and two 40 GB drives. once a month they swap in the second hd, boot up with the manufacturer's floppy and do a copy. they then remove the second hd and store it in a safe place. once a week he and she do backups to CDRs. it isn't a perfect system, though. they went through two cheap power supplies, and now their motherboard died. but once they install the caddy in a new machine, they should be able to throw in all the drivers and keep right on trucking.

 

[Russ Arcuri]

Quote:

Originally posted by vwap heh.. I don't think there's really many "consumer's" out there that even bother with RAID-5. It's more the premise of,.. "I just bought 4 - 120GB drives.. and for what? I'm going to use all 480GB of it.. why would I want to RAID-5 it and only have 120GB?".. of course this doesn't really work 'cause no "normal" consumer would buy 4 - 120GB drives.. but still..

No... four 120 GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration would give you 360 GB of redundant storage, not 120. You only lose one drive's worth of storage to the redundancy.

 

[CaptBubba]

All about RAID:

http://www.acnc.com/04_01_00.html

 

[vwap]

Quote:

Originally posted by Russ Arcuri No... four 120 GB drives in a RAID 5 configuration would give you 360 GB of redundant storage, not 120. You only lose one drive's worth of storage to the redundancy.

hmm.. isn't RAID 5 striping over two drives, with a third as a parity, leaving the first drive as the only one?..

Heh. I could look this up.. but I've got a midterm to be studying for. =)

 

[Russ Arcuri]

Quote:

Originally posted by vwap hmm.. isn't RAID 5 striping over two drives, with a third as a parity, leaving the first drive as the only one?.

Well, almost... but you're calculating storage incorrectly. RAID 5 means any set of three or more disks set up to stripe information, along with redundancy info, across all of them. You lose one disk's worth of storage capacity to the striped redundancy info, which is written to all the disks. So if you lose one disk, you lose all the information sitting on that disk, plus whatever redundancy info is on it. But here's the clever part -- the remaining disks, in addition to holding whatever data is stored on them, contain the redundancy data for the lost disk. The disk you lost contains redundancy info for data on the other three disks, but not itself.

So four 120 GB disks set up in a RAID 5 would yield three 120 GB disks' worth of storage. 3 x 120 = 360.

 

[bootman]

You guys are a bad influence.
All this talk about raid (which i'll admit I started).
made me bid on this so that I could play with IDE raids at home.

Now see what you guys made me do?