Help to recover a RAID0 with dead windows - formating is not an option.

I barely got here, by a ubuntu live cd. Thank god for open source free live CDs.

Basically my main drive are 2 HDDs on RAID 0, MB = Asus Commando.

I got a virus and my windows is dead. I have to resolve the issue clearly...
The virus is probably dead, since the Norton AV knocked the XP dead.

I have two partitions on my RAID drive...

I tried to install windows on my second partition - doesn't work if i don't give it the raid driver and if the RAID driver is inserted via floppy with F6 through the windows install menu - its ok by the time I selected on which partition to install Windows it wanted me to insert the floppy disk again and didn't recognize it, said its either damaged or not there. Tough it copies from it at step one to recognize the drive ...

Now i have an old IDE barrauda and i hoped i can boot from it as a primary device, but when i hook it up and set it from bios it doesn't work and it enters a boot loop on windows load screen. My best guess it that its from the raid but I'm not all that experienced.

I wouldn't need help if formating my raid was an option.

So i need to get to my dead windows and save my program files/ web history / my documents and other folders that would get trashed if i use the tools from the XP install cd to repair/reinstall... If i access and save my files on the dead Windows system i could delete everything else and install again easy ...

I've read on forums that its safe only to read files from NTFS via Ubuntu so this isn't an option.

I can either install windows on my second partition on the raid... Which failed.
Or i can boot from my barracuda. Which failed too even tough it was set as a primary drive.

I have no idea which is the easy path here.
And i have no idea if i split the RAID through the software will the data on both HDDs be readable separated?

I'm not a total newbie so i need little explanation, i just have no prior experience with such matters.

Thank you for your time and understanding.

 

If the drives are physically healthy, and the RAID setup is healthy, and if it's simply a Windows/software/file system problem, you can probably use a 'live' CD like the UBCD4Win (Ultimate Boot CD for Windows) which is basically a bootable CD that is just like running Windows from a CD drive. This leaves your hard drives alone so you can access them via an Explorer-like environment. You'll need a Windows XP disc, and a functional CD burner in order to build the CD. You can download it from here and the how-to-build guide is available here. You can also try using a Knoppix boot CD; it's a bootable Linux OS that runs exclusively from the CD. There's also the Active@ BootCD which has a free demo version with most of the functions active. Once it's loaded, you can remove the disc which frees up the drive for burning if you have only one CD/DVD drive. Then you can burn your data and back it up. The UBCD4Win and the Active@CD both have many tools and repair options built in that should be helpful....

I hope these help!! Good luck, and keep us posted!

 

UBCD4Win worked tough not through the provided source, its has problems unpacking...

I got a ready UBCD4Win cd off my local network, which worked.
From then it was easy, just booted from it and renamed/deleted/downloaded whatever i needed on my main drives. And it turned out that the driver disk really wasn't working when i opened it via explorer on the UBCD4Win ...

Then I simply installed XP on "clean".

Tough the Kaspersky found 3k infected files. And managed to disinfect most of them unlike that crap norton which suicided my pc in the first place.

A guy would believe that a company with such a long history of such software development wouldn't offer such garbage.

Thx for the help any ways, I haven't heard of UBCD4Win before. I read something about a BARD or BART environment but most of the reviews were dubious.

You guys should really make and archive of these threads.
Thread started pushes a button like "resolved thread" and it goes to archive.