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I had a 4-HDD stripe array disk. All HDDs were internal. The dynamic disk was created using Windows 7. My motherboard fried, and I bought a replacement. But what do you know, it's only got 2 sata ports!

But I do have 2 USB enclosures. So I plugged the other two HDDs through them, but Win7 won't let me reactivate the volume. It says the HDDs are missing and the ones plugged in through USB are invalid.

I know Win 7 enforces a policy of no-USB for dynamic disks, but I really need to get the data off. Before you ask, I don't have a sata card. :/ I would have used one already.

My question is whether there's a way to trick Win7 into thinking my two USB drives are internal (via a hacked driver or something like that) or there's a program (freeware) that can let me access the dynamic disk in a read-only manner not through windows 7?

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Check out Runtime Software's RAID Reconstructor, as they claim it has support for recovering Dynamic disk-based RAIDs.

The RAID Reconstructor will recover both, hardware and software RAIDs. It will recover from broken Windows Dynamic Disk sets.

I'm not sure it will work help any with the USB drives, but it may be useful in reassembling the array from the 4 separate pieces via the 2 SATA ports you have available.

It's not freeware, but it's only $100, and there's a 30-day trial version (not sure of limitations)

On the other hand, you can also get a 4-port SATA controller card for ~$100 (example).

The question to you is, is your data worth $100 to you? ;)

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  • I was specifically looking for freeware. A new motherboard will cost me less.
    – McTrafik
    Mar 10, 2011 at 6:37
  • Sorry haven't seen any, good luck! :)
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Mar 10, 2011 at 14:19
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Another option is R-Studio. They too can recover RAID volumes, even from drive images, so I believe you should be able to use your USB drives as well. Very reasonably priced as well ($79). You can have it immediately via download. I recently used it on a Dell system that had lost it's boot drive, and it read the hardware RAID perfectly, even though windows could not.

It can recover data from drives that are no longer readable by the OS. It's a great tool to have on hand.

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  • I was specifically looking for freeware. A new motherboard will cost me less.
    – McTrafik
    Mar 10, 2011 at 6:37

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