Can't access data on hard drive

[shabamjenkins]

Recently my primary hard drive failed in my computer that I'm using as a file server. I've been able to reinstall Windows Server 2008 and update drivers back to where I was previously. There is only one item that I haven't been able to get my 2 storage hard drives to show up in My Computer. On the previous installation of Windows, I used some software that was already available through HP to mirror one of the drives off of the other. This gave me one hard drive with another with redundancy. Currently with my new install, in My Computer I can only see my C: drive and a removable storage drive. I'm assuming my hard drive (connected by sata) is showing as a removable storage device as I do not have anything outside of a keyboard and mouse connected by USB. The Device Manager shows both hard drives as working properly. Also, I installed an Intel Raid software piece from the product page as well. In this program, I can see both drives as well, both with the status of working properly. I am currently not able to access any data on these drives.

I did try moving one of these hard drives to another computer as well to see if I could access my data and I get the same results. I don't remember what software I had used previously as this setup has been running for years without any issue.

This computer is a Pavilion p6110t CTO Desktop that I've repurposed with an additional 2 1.5tb samsung hdds.

 

[Rocketrambo23]

what does your hard drives look like in disk management in the computer manage screen

 

[reedo_43]

You need to set up the raid in the raid bios not windows.

 

[Rocketrambo23]

You need to set up the raid in the raid bios not windows.

You are correct but it also sounds like the hard drives are not even formatted correctly

 

[shabamjenkins]

Ok, maybe the removable storage isn't one of the hard drives showing up. I believe that may be the multi-card reader. Looking at the Disk Management screen, I see Disk 1 and Disk2 listed as Dynamic and Foreign.

I'm confused as to how they could be formatted incorrectly when I had been using them as they are for years previously before my original OS hdd had failed. Before I had used some piece of software to mirror them instead of setting them up in raid as I stumbled across it messing around one day and it seemed to work.

 

[Rocketrambo23]

whats going on is when you copied your stuff from one drive over to your new drive it transformed your dynamic disk into a foreign disk so its makeing the drive unusable.

what raid are you running right now

 

[shabamjenkins]

I currently don't have the drives setup in any kind of raid. Would doing this solve the issue? I don't have any experience with raid or drive mirroring software. I just wanted to make sure a drive failure wouldn't cause me to lose everything.

 

[SortNVF]

open storage menu in start>computer>rightclick>manage
Assign drive letter.

 

[Rocketrambo23]

open storage menu in start>computer>rightclick>manage
Assign drive letter.

if it foreign drive trying to give it a letter is not gonna fix the problem

 

[Rocketrambo23]

I currently don't have the drives setup in any kind of raid. Would doing this solve the issue? I don't have any experience with raid or drive mirroring software. I just wanted to make sure a drive failure wouldn't cause me to lose everything.

i looked it up and i really dont see a safe way of bringing the harddrive back to a dynamic disk. when you right click on the drive what options come up

 

[shabamjenkins]

On the Disk Management screen, if I right click one of the 2 drives I have 5 options that are available: Import Foreign Disks..., Convert to Basic Disk, Offline, Properties, and Help.

Also, would putting these drives in raid through the bios make my data available again? I don't need to separate these drives, I'll probably leave them in this configuration. I just want to get access to the data again.

 

[reedo_43]

If you put them back into raid 1 which I believe they were at one time, may get you access to the data. No promises and I can not be held responsible for data loss. Good luck!

 

[Rocketrambo23]

On the Disk Management screen, if I right click one of the 2 drives I have 5 options that are available: Import Foreign Disks..., Convert to Basic Disk, Offline, Properties, and Help.

Also, would putting these drives in raid through the bios make my data available again? I don't need to separate these drives, I'll probably leave them in this configuration. I just want to get access to the data again.

http://www.partition-tool.com/easeus-partition-manager/convert-dynamic-disk-to-basic-disk.htm

try using this tool no promises but this is the best i could find online