Recover data from Hard Drive not initialized

[kevin_476]

Hi all!

I've done some search on the net but didn't find the solution for this problem.

I have 2 Maxtor HDD's 30 GB each, in raid0. And now I added a 120 GB HDD alone so out of the raids. But when I configured the raid setup, i accidentally said yes to 'Do you want to erase old data for the new array' or something like that. I was stupid, I know. I thought it's just the usual confirmation thing.

And now I'm here with a 60 GB not initialized, unallocated drive.

I thought its best not to do anything until I'm really sure about what I do.

The problem is that there were some very important files and digital photos on that drive...

Please, can you think of any possible free solutions to this? No matter how hard it is, or long it will take, I would even sit here for the whole night if I had to.

Thank you very much for any advice on what to do.

[pata2001]

You probably have to go to some professional data resotration services to really fully restore the data, and they are really expensive. It all boils down to how important the data is to you. If you have another PC, you can try plugging the affected hard-drive(s) to the other PC, and try using many of the "undelete/unformat" utilities, and maybe recover some partial data, but most of the times they are not that useful. Free solutions? They are probably even more useless. The fact that you have the hard-drives as Raid 0 pretty much reduce any chance of recovery. Whatever you do next, don't format/write to the affected hard-drive(s). If you're savvy enough, you can boot up from a linux boot CD, and try to use linux to access/recover the data. I'm no expert on linux, so I can't tell you anthing more.

I've been in your position many times, mainly because of hard-drive failures. Sometimes I just had to suck it up, and re-download/re-rip whatever data I need. Another important point for making backups regularly, and not to use Raid 0 without Raid 1/redundancy.

Edited February 9, 2007 by pata2001

[gabriel_409]

This is the same blunder I did and you knows what… I almost lost my data. I was so tensed caz all data was lost (I thought ) But My friend suggested me a lab something called Salvage Recovery Lab or something similar to that. When I contacted I got my problem was solved. They solved the bug and got my 90% of the data back. I don’t know how but they managed to got it back. I was extremely happy that I got my maximum data. If you want you can call at 1 203-973-0242 get your problem solved.

All the best.