RAID controller crashed & the reconfiguration is a mess.

[blok8s]

RAID controller crashed & the reconfiguration is a mess.

Further to adding an additional drive to RAID 5 array I tried to create a new set up or rather upgrade the controller to reconfigure the recent RAID 5 array to incorporate the new HDD.
The controller crashes when starting the BIOS, & the only way to see the controller in Windows Server 2000 if the boot process has finished, no drives are indicated.
Please help..thanks

[GDH]

If your RAID system is not functional and you are using a Striping RAID then you will not be able to use Recover My Files to recover files (as as single file is written to two or more physical hard drives). We suggest you search the Internet for a spe******ed RAID repair tool.

Are you able to tell if your RAID controller is functioning correctly?

If the data is very important, probably the best data recovery advice I can give you is to take an image of the all the drives in the RAID. An image is an exact sector copy, and I would do it using EnCase, www.encase.com, as their latest software allows you to reconstruct a RAID array from the image files.

Once the image has been taken, at least you know that you have preserved what data is there and you cannot make things worse. Let me know if you need further information.