Hard Drives showing up as "invalid"

jac4593 · 2 Aug 2010 at 23:45

For some reason on my last Win7 install I had 3 hard drives extended into 1 virtual/dynamic drive (?)

So I went along and installed a clean copy of Windows 7, not over any of the 3 drives or anything like that and now I can't access any of the data

I did all of it through the Virtual Disk Manager on Windows, when I access it on my new copy of windows I get "invalid" - there's nothing wrong with the actual HDD's themselves it's just that I can't access any of the data on them.

I've tried to view the files through linux but I get an unknown file system. I've tried to google my way out, but I either didn't look good enough or didn't know what to look for. Any advice on what to do?

mrtckane · 3 Aug 2010 at 00:44

you created a software based raid array, now that the array is no longer intact, you have lost the data. you might wish to try recreating the array but without formatting anything, though that might not work.

rpstewart · 3 Aug 2010 at 08:54

So you've got three disks which are inaccessible to a copy of Win 7 booting from a fourth disk?

Have you tried going into Disk Management and importing the dynamic disks as "Foreign Disks". If I remember correctly it's an option on the right click menu on the grey disk info area to the left of the drive bar in the bottom part of DM.

jac4593 · 3 Aug 2010 at 18:18

I tried Importing Foreign Disks, but it won't allow me to select it.