More HDD help needed.

[Duke{CLR}]

Well this is related to the two recent posts about the RAID 5 on my wife's desktop.

I was able to get the RAID rebuilt in windows but it wasn't showing up in windows. I then went to the disk management area and added the new volume but then is asked my if I wanted to format so I selected no. Now the array is showing up in windows but if I try to explore it it says that it needs to be formatted. Now when I go back to the disk mangment it shows up as a raw disk. Is there some way that I can get on this disk and retrieve then data?

[Qicmee]

I'm not familiar with potential RAID problems, but when Windows has mysterious drive access problems, I've had luck copying files using a Linux live CD/DVD (no installation required).

I've used KNOPPIX. There might be friendlier ones available.
KNOPPIX - Live Linux Filesystem On CD

[Duke{CLR}]

Thanks Qicmee, that inspired me to search for data recovery software. Has anybody tried any of these.

Free data Recovery Software Roundup! (All freeware data recovery tools.)