Data Recovery

So...

I thought I was being so clever using a raid array with drive mirroring
in my PC. Why back up, there's only the risk that the PC gets stolen or
the whole PC dies due to the PSU dying.

There's also the risk that 'something goes wrong' and the array just
disappears.

Rebooted and... well, nothing really. Still not there. Rebooted ran the
raid setup utility and it said there was a corrupted array. The rebuild
option wasn't available, all that was was delete and then form new
array. Which I did. This took seconds.

I then rebooted and windows wanted me to reformat the array, which I
didn't do.

I've plugged an individual disk into a PC (SATA) but it just asks me to
reformat.

So.. how could I get my data back or is it completely gone?

 

Speak to Odie at www.retrodata.co.uk

JB

 

Not sure how to get it back, but this was your mistake.

You should have pulled the drives out and tried them standalone first.

 

It's never completely gone even if you do a reformat. Try and get a
copy of a Linux live distro like Knoppix and see if that is able to find
your disks...

 

Seems to be the correct answer. Nice piece of software, no issues at
all. 40 quid ish was a reasonable price to pay as well. Thanks for your
advice... My 10+ years of fuel consumption data are recovered... *phew*

I've been playing around with a MacMini recently; If only I could find
something like Microsoft Money to run on it[1] I'd happily junk the PC
and put my trust in a technical solution like 'time machine' to look
after the back ups for me; which of course would fail...

However the Mac Mini is a nice piece of kit in any case.


[1] Not really interested in a dual boot approach to run windows on it.

 

All of them seem to be, which is why I've got from a Linux/Windows
PC-only shop in here to one that's got two Macs as well. Most of the
software development I do outside the consulting bit is portable/Unixi
anyway and that I can do on a Mac as easily as on a PC running Linux...

Part of the problem with Personal Finance packages in the UK seems to be
that we don't do Personal Finance packages - witness the dearth of
upgrades for MS Money UK. Anyway, Quicken is a Mac product, but a quick
Google brought up the following:

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/askjack/2007/08/finding_a_personal_finance_pro.html

Doesn't seem to be that encouraging.

Well, if you don't want to dual-boot Windows but need to use some
Windows software occasionally, have a look at Parallels
(http://www.parallels.com/) - a mate of mine has been using that for
years to run Windows on a Mac when necessary and it's certainly good
enough to run all the Windows-only remote access software that he needs
to run if he wants to work from home. I also use it on Linux (so I can
run Money without having to boot back into Windows, natch) and keep
meaning to buy it for the Mac but keep forgetting to do so.

 

Don't dual-boot, use VMWare Fusion and installed Windows in a virtual
machine. I've done this for a couple of pieces of software I have
that have no Mac equivalent. Windows runs nears as I can tell at
native speed, and I've set it to run on another virtual desktop so one
simple key shortcut flicks between the two OSs.

And Time Machine coupled with a Time Capsule is about the best
consumer backup solution I've seen.

 

What about http://www.gnucash.org?

What about http://bellard.org/qemu/?

--
TD
1991 VFR400R NC30 (black and red)
2001 ZX-9R (red and black)
1999 M5 (neither black nor red)
Missing: SOB, Unreliable Italian exotica, Lardy tourer

 

Can I just second Fusion. Its ace, really good, and you can even hide
the Windows OS and just run the app on your mac desktop, within Unity.
Works great.

 

Also recommended is VMWare Converter. When you're ready to move computers
simply convert your current Windows installation to a virtual machine,
save it off somewhere and then reinstall / move to your new computer.

You can then spend time setting things up properly, as the only thing you
need to install on your new computer is VMWare. You can then boot your old
computer up, check your mail/news/whatever as needed and there's no rush
to get everything up and running straight away.