Recover a Partition on *Functioning* RAID

[A.A.5]

I've got a Partition which appears as RAW on my RAID partition, where there used to be a Windows installation until I did IDK what upon installing some other hardware.

The 100 MB 'system reserved' partition on these drives is still accessible, which seems to preclude a cable connection error (which I originally suspected, since I am using IDE to Sata Adapters...)

The partition seems inaccessible.

To me I have few options:
Format a New Partition, Risking Data loss, and perhaps without even getting a new partiton
 - Then Use File Recovery Software

- Other software

[Computer_Commando]

RAID 0 or RAID 1?

[A.A.5]

Whoops....
0.
Not sure if it matters in this case or not - just wanted to point out again that there is a functioning partition on the same 'R'AID.

[JJ 3000]

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

might be able to get it back

[A.A.5]

Thanks, this seems like a good program - lots to go through and try. If nothing works on my own, I'm going to throw together a nice post with Screenshots of what tried and my drives setup, maybe even grab a pic of my raid array in BIOS and rl, for clarity, so everyone can see my terrible case (but hey its cost me $0 over 7 years so...)

[Computer_Commando]

RAID 0 is generally not recoverable, since the data is split among 2 drives.  From the title, the "lost" partition does not apear to be the boot partition, so Windows still functions.  Why would you use RAID 0 for anything?  RAID 1 would be a much better choice.

[A.A.5]

RAID 0 Provides a significant performance boost (and these are older 250 GB drives), and you can mitigate the risk by backing up, or if you have the money (unlike me) by using RAID 10.
Like usual, I 'didn't back up' - I backed up a lot of stuff, and there's some stuff on their that I care to recover but I could live without, and also I'd like my OS files to be on they - they already are - for boot times. Most of the Data on the drives is non-unique files which can be re-downloaded and re-installed as needed, but that is a pain.

Like I said before, the RAID seems to be intact and its just the MBR or something that is broken. The drives are on the same Raid Chip, same physical piece of hardware and the same setup AFAIK as before the error occurred. I am continuing to explore using TestDisk.

Oh to Clarify, Windows is *NOT* booting, per se. I am currently running a backup installation in the same machine. 
Symptoms of the WIndows Installation on the RAID parition:
Boots, Gets to the Loading art, crashes a while later, longer than it used to take to Boot.
I'll get the Safe Mode info later, if the problem is not yet resolved.

[Computer_Commando]

I would test the bad hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic software:  http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287
You can only hope there's a bad sector & it will identify & relocate it to the hidden spare sectors.

[A.A.5]

Update: I have successfully recovered FILES off of the partition - using TestDisk's photorec_win.exe - so the data is intact.
I've found an intact file, music, fully audible, 9 MB in size. A file this size should rule out damage to the RAID as it is much larger than the stripe size, am I right?

Also, I don't think the above postreally applies - *no bad drive, manufacturer is Western Digital for Both Drives, Gigabyte makes the mobo, not sure about the raid controller chip specifically - an AMD subsidiary?
Nonetheless thanks for the help.

[A.A.5]

To reiterate, the files and data in general are intact on the RAID, and I can restore them - without proper filenames in most cases - using PhotoRec, but the file system is broken or gone. CGSecurity might have forums for where I can plead my specific case, but if anyone is really handy with it, even generally knowledgeable about Data recovery, go ahead and advise me right here.