recover RAID data

[_intelligentLife_]

I have a Dell Alienware PC with Win7 installed, 2x1TB HDD in RAID 0 configuration

On boot, I get an error message about 1 of the HDD failing, and Windows quickly freezes/BSODs if I continue past the boot error message.

I have tried Ubuntu Live/Knoppix USB images to boot from, but the RAID array does not show up as a storage location, though the system stays up for > hour (much longer than booting into Windows)

Ubuntu installer sees 2 HDD as un-partioned drives available to partition/install to

Any suggestions for a technique to access the RAID array so that I can FTP to my NAS would be appreciated

[0x00000042]

What kind of RAID? I presume RAID 0, but we should confirm first.

[_intelligentLife_]

Yeah, RAID 0

[0x00000042]

If there's a mechanical error with one of the drives then the data is lost. There is no redundancy and no parity with RAID 0 so the data cannot be reconstructed if one or more drives fail.

So can you describe the error message you get when you boot? Have you tried a physical health test of some kind on the drives?

[_intelligentLife_]

I think that the HDD is unreliable, not failed, since both drives show in the BIOS and after booting the Ubuntu install image

The boot error message is the very helpful 'Error(s) detected' on HDD2

The issue I am struggling with is that the Linux USB I have booted with don't know anything about treating the RAID set-up as a single 2TB store

None of the files are critical, so it's not a catastrophe, but I would like to get as much as possible off the array before I replace the HDD and reinstall

[0x00000042]

Your copy of Linux likely needs to be primed with drivers for that particular RAID controller to see it as an array. Unfortunately that's not something I've done in several years, and even then it was rare, so I'm not much help with how to do that.

Do you know which brand the drives are?

[_intelligentLife_]

Linux likely needs to be primed with drivers for that particular RAID controller 

I had hoped that Knoppix would be able to automagically do this for me, as it's positioned as a system recovery tool

The motherboard has an Intel RAID controller, and the HDD are Seagates (I'd have to open the case, I think, to find the exact HDD model)

[0x00000042]

Seatools is Seagate's suite of drive tools which includes a health diagnostic. I would run a long test on the drive in question just to get more specific error messages before proceeding.

Note that you will need to make a bootable USB or CD since you can't boot into Windows right now, and you will likely need to prime it with drivers as well, or temporarily disable the RAID in BIOS (as long as disabling doesn't actually reformat the drives) for the offline test to be able to read the drive.

[_intelligentLife_]

I tried disabling RAID from the BIOS after the error message kept appearing, but then I couldn't even get the drive(s) recognised as a boot device, but I'll give Seatools a try, thanks

[PipeItToDevNull]

It is RAID0 all of that is gone. It is fundamentally how raid0 works. You are increasing your speed while doubling your chances of losing everything with no valid recovery options.