I too would like to thank Betty and the other contributors for the info here which put me on the right path to rescuing several years' worth of photos, videos and music.
As a complete Linux beginner, I eventually got there by a combination of Betty’s advice and trial and error. I thought it might help others in the same predicament (i.e. with defunct MSS II box configured as RAID 0 and both drives intact) to have an “idiot's guide” and maybe save a lot of messing around.
1. As stated already, you need to dismantle the MSS box and connect the two rescued drives to a PC using suitable SATA data and power leads. You need to consider how much you want to rescue and where you want to copy it. My PC's installed C: and D: drives had a total spare capacity of about 350GB - just about enough to rescue my most treasured photos, videos and music tracks from the MSS box. Apparently, it is possible to copy files to a network location by setting up a SSH server. I played with OpenSSH for Windows but decided that the effort required to understand it and configure it wasn’t worthwhile for a one-off exercise!
2. Download the latest version of the Knoppix from a mirror near you (http://knopper.net/knoppix-mirrors/index-en.html) I downloaded the ISO CD image of Knoppix v 6.2 EN and burned a CD...
3. After booting, start File Manager (PCMan) and look at the list of volumes/partitions identified by Knoppix. Depending on the number of drives installed, you should be able to identify drives like sda, sdb, sdc, sdd, etc. and individual partitions on each drive, like sda2, sdb1, sdc1,2 & 5 and sdd1,2 & 5, etc.
In my case, the PC’s C: and D: volumes/partitions are sdb1 (aka “Local Drive”) and sda2 respectively. The other two drives, sdc and sdd are the two drives in the RAID array that I want to re-assemble. You’ll notice three visible partitions on each drive (in my case sdc1, sdc2 & sdc5 and sdd1, sdd2 & sdd5) containing various system files but no sign of your data (which is on the invisible partitions that you can’t see)
4. To reveal this data, you’ll need to find the UUID of your RAID array by running the mdadm utility-
Start Terminal Emulator (LXTerminal) by clicking the icon in the shortcuts at the bottom of the screen.
At the system prompt [“knoppix@Microknoppix:~$] type: mdadm --examine --scan
This should tell you the RAID device (/dev/md0) and its UUID, e.g:
ARRAY /dev/md0 UUID=10e2a3fe:087ac9a5:736b43d4:1dc694d9
5. Next, you need to create a mdadm.conf file (using Leafpad in the Accessories menu) and save it somewhere. I saved it in the root of my Local Disk, i.e. /media/sdb1/mdadm.conf The file will contain two lines:
DEVICE /dev/sd[cd][123456]
ARRAY /dev/md0 level=linear num-devices=2 UUID=10e2a3fe:087ac9a5:736b43d4:1dc694d9
Change the drive suffixes in square brackets “[cd]” to match your own setup – e.g. “[bc]” as appropriate and, of course, insert your own UUID!
6. Finally, you need to assemble the RAID array. Assembling requires root (‘su’ or super user) privileges.
Back in LXTerminal type: su
then on the next line type: passwd
Example:
knoppix@Microknoppix:~$ su
root@Microknoppix:/home/knoppix# passwd
Enter new UNIX password: (password doesn't show)
Retype new UNIX password: (password doesn't show)
password updated successfully
7. Now, at last you can assemble the RAID array. Type (including the location where you saved the config):
mdadm --assemble --scan --config=/media/sdb1/mdadm.conf
You should see -
mdadm: /dev/md0 has been started with 2 drives.
8. Back in File Manager you'll see that a 997.6GB volume (/media/md0) has magically appeared!
Now it's easy to copy files from md0 to your internal hard drive(s) – though it may well take several hours.
More reading: Besides the Linux Journal article mentioned, there's a very good intro to Knoppix in the IBM Developer article at http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-knopx.html
