I'd like to add info on recovering a RAID 0 (and at least some other RAID types too) painlessly. To be able to accomplish the painless part, one needs to be proactive when it comes the various RAID disasters that may occur--just as one ought to be fearful about losing data that are not backed up. I hope my thoughts are closely enough related to the sticky to be useful to others. They seem to fit pretty well in the context of the things already discussed above. I don't mean to be pedantic on the proactive part. But, being prepared for a RAID disaster makes recovery much more palatable.
I've used Acronis True Image for years for disaster recovery. My RAID 0 has been pushed almost to extinction several times, but my True Image disk images always have saved me from hours of reinstallation, etc. Here, I am not concerned about data recovery since I back my data up regularly sans True Image. Still, what I am talking about can prevent the loss of data in a RAID disaster--except for unbacked up data.
My current True Image disk image came in very handy two times recently after building the setup in my sig. First, my image was made from the RAID 0 installation on a different, but still capable, computer. Anyway, the current version of True Image claims to be able to do a good job of recovery even from dissimilar computers--with RAID or not. I decided to give it a try. And, it worked. That is, having set my SATA drives to RAID, in my ASUS BIOS, I was able to recover my installation perfectly to the new rig using my (true) image. The "perfectly" part took a tad of fussing around with Device Manager, but, whoa, what a break. I didn't have to reinstall 7 and all my apps.
The second time True Image saved me recently has to do with the ASUS optimized BIOS defaults. I have RMA'd a number things related to my new system. And, several times I have had to rebuild from the mobo up--which implies the existence of a new BIOS with optimized defaults. Not thinking about the fact that these defaults do not include SATA RAID as a default on my board, I lost my RAID 0 the first time I rebuilt. True image to the rescue again. I got to the BIOS, set my RAID 0 array up freshly and, then, recovered my (true) image to the RAID setup. While it takes 30 or so minutes to recover in this fashion, my wait was a small price to pay for not having to reinstall everything or to deal with lost data.
I learned pretty quickly not to plug in my SATA array drives too soon during a rebuild. That is, now, I don't plug them in until after getting into the BIOS and choosing the SATA RAID option if using a mobo with BIOS defaults similar to mine.
Obviously, the uses of True Image RAID disk images (or those from a similar program) can be applied to many cases of RAID failure/disaster. But, the proactive part of the equation needs to be satisfied in order to recover relatively painlessly.
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