Data back up using Knoppix

**Sammy1719** · 05-19-2009, 04:56 AM

Hello everyone.
I am not very technically inclined but please be patient with me.
I was recommended to install Knoppix to take care of this problem that I have with my computer.

I have 3 hard drives on my computer.
1) is OS with some data.
2 and 3 are configured as RAID 0.

My computer will not start normal nor will it start in Safe Mode. I can't repair it using the XP disk because I don't know the password as my friend did it and doesn't remember the password.

The OS hard drive I can pull out and stick into my external case and back up the data. However, I can't do the same with my RAID-ed hard drives.

I want to do a clean install on my OS hard drive, but I am afraid to loose the data that is on RAIDed hard drives.

Someone suggested to use Knoppix as I will be able to access my RAID-ed hard drives without installing anything. Or something along these lines. Can you direct me to a specific post or a page in this site where I can learn more about this and use like a step -by-step guide to back up my data.

thank you all

**Harry Kuhman** · 05-19-2009, 05:48 AM

Assuming that the raid drives are a software raid and not a true hardware raid drive set (which is the normal way most people do raid, particularly with raid on a motherboard), you very likely are not going to read them with Knoppix. And I should also point out that raid 0 drastically increases your chance of a drive failure (a failure of either drive, or even the raid controller, will cause loss of data on both drives) and in most cases doesn't offer much of a speed improvement.

You best bet is to use Knoppix to recover the data on your main OS drive, either across a network to another system, or to a USB flash drive, or a FAT formatted (not NTFS) USB or firewire external drive, or even burning discs if you have multiple drives or enough memory to load Knoppix "toram" (rumored to not work with Knoppix 6.x). Then reinstall a Microsoft os to the drive (I would disconnect the raid drives during all of this just to be safe). Then finally reconnect the raid drives, install the windows driver for the raid array, and recover the raid disk with Windows.

**Sammy1719** · 05-19-2009, 06:52 AM

I actually backed up my OS hard drive data by just taking it putting it into external hard drive case.

My main concern is the data on RAID-ed hard drives. Will I be able transfer them to an external hard drive (assuming it is formatted as FAT) using Knoppix without reinstalling the OS?

I agree with you on RAID 0. My friend built this system for me years ago and I sort of let him do what he wanted. Since then I have realized the pitfalls of RAID 0 and on my second build with I built myself I didn't do any sort of RAID but rather just systematically back up my stuff.

thanks

**Harry Kuhman** · 05-19-2009, 07:35 AM

Originally Posted by Sammy1719

My main concern is the data on RAID-ed hard drives. Will I be able transfer them to an external hard drive (assuming it is formatted as FAT) using Knoppix without reinstalling the OS?

No. If it's software raid then it needs a special Windows driver. you will need to protect the drives, reinstall windows on another drive, and then install the raid driver and attach the raid pair to the windows os to recover the data.

Originally Posted by Sammy1719

I agree with you on RAID 0. My friend built this system for me years ago and I sort of let him do what he wanted. Since then I have realized the pitfalls of RAID 0 and on my second build with I built myself I didn't do any sort of RAID but rather just systematically back up my stuff.

I hope that you (and others reading this) understand that raid 0 has nothing to do with redundancy. If you have really been making backups then use those to recover your important data. Raid 0 increases the chance of data loss, it in no way replaces backups. Other Raid systems provide some level of redundancy, but they do not eliminate the need for backups, as there are many ways that data in a raid system can be lost other than the failure of a single drive.

**Sammy1719** · 05-19-2009, 08:15 AM

"No. If it's software raid then it needs a special Windows driver. you will need to protect the drives, reinstall windows on another drive, and then install the raid driver and attach the raid pair to the windows os to recover the data. "

When you say attach raid pair to the windows os, do you mean just connect the raid drives to the motherboard after I install the OS on a different drive and install the drivers?

As to your second comment, unfortunately I have valuable info on the 1st build that I never backed up like the data I backed up from my 2nd computer.

thanks

**Harry Kuhman** · 05-19-2009, 08:22 AM

Originally Posted by Sammy1719

When you say attach raid pair to the windows os, do you mean just connect the raid drives to the motherboard after I install the OS on a different drive and install the drivers?

Yes, new system should see the data. Of course, windows is quite capable of destroying data, particularly on ntfs partitions (I have 3 such drives that I have been unable to recover files from) so I can't say with complete assurance that windows has not already done something to the partition spanning the raid drives, but I think you best approach to recovering the data is to use a windows system with the software raid driver installed.