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I had a striped RAID array a long time ago. One of the drives failed and I just used the other drive as a stand alone disk. I have now switched my BIOS back to RAID mode and have created a RAID5 array from other drives. I can't read any data from the old drive because it thinks that it is still part of a broken array. Shall I just delete the old array or will I lose data? Alternatively I could switch back to non RAID mode and copy all of the files on to a virginal disk and then re-copy them in RAID mode but we are talking about terabytes of data.

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Why did they let you change your raid mode in an enteprise environment? – Jim B May 26 '11 at 22:01

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If you had a striped RAID set across 2 disks, losing one of the disks loses all of the data. If one is truly hosed, that other disk is only good for a fresh install now.

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Depending on how valuable the data is to you, I have recovered totally broken RAID 5's with File Scavenger.

You would need the professional version to recover broken RAID. See down the page under the licensing link.

http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm

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The data isn't actually on the array it is on the disk itself. However when I switch my BIOS to RAID mode it assumes that it is part of a broken array and I can't read it. – Joe Shearn May 26 '11 at 20:27
They won't need to be in the array...as long as you can get the drive to spin, even attached to any old SCSI card, and be seen by the OS as a disk (it may, or may not, be given a letter...in your case not). As long as you can get it to be seen by the disk manager, File scavenger will let you get whatever is on it. For example, you have the option to scan drive C, but also, its other name drive 0. – KCotreau May 26 '11 at 23:05

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