really need to get data from a disk array

If the RAID controller is an expansion card, then yes, you very likely can put it and the array drives in a new machine and access the data.

basically its sitting ina machine with a scsi card, can i put a scsi card in another machine and have it see the array or raw data?

I suggest installing the controller card into another system.  If it's already booting into Windows from another disk, that's good. Allow the expansion controller to act as a 2nd set of drives.  After loading the drivers so you see the controller, shut the system down, connect the cables and drives (in the same order as original & same connector on controller) and boot the system.

If you are lucky, the drives will come up and you should be able to access them. Based on the controller you have, you might have to run other processes, but make sure it does not format the drives.

what do you mean its good if its booting into windows?? because its saying missing ntldr??

ok i have the exact same machine i am gona put the controller into that and try ??

It depends on make/model of the array. There may be an off-the-shelf product (like runtime.org raid reconstructor).

But that software won't help if it is a UNIX-based appliance.

No matter what, $5K - $10K to a pro will usually work. Every moment you even have it turned on risks further damage  also.  If you install those disks in another system, especially one running windows, then you are at extreme risk of doing damage.

Windows won't do a read-only mount. Even plugging them in risks changing something and making it worse.   If the data is valuable, pay for professional help.

its seems to be just a windows error i have booted up using recover console...but if i try and go inside folders i am getting "acess denied"

do i have to swap the whole controller or just the disks into a machine that has same setup

You can also try taking that SCSI card and drives and installing them on another server/pc that currently boots. This would allow you to backup the data before going further.

Boot up, backup the data and then evaluate the problem concerning the windows repair process.

What O/S are you running and what SCSI card and drives do you have?

You swap the card, cable and disks as one unit.

Do both. The controller has metadata on it, and knows the state of the RAID and even if there was a rebuild or some other recovery going on at the time.

the worrying thing is that when i am in recovery console i cant see the "windows" drive i can see the other drives, they are showing as folders but 0 bytes?

Do you have one of those awful FakeRAID controllers??   The mere fact that you see the folders indicates you have already done some damage and may not be able to get it back yourself.  Windows will update last-access bits so it is screwing up your data and creating corruption.

(At least highly likely, depending on RAID setup / config)

Exactly what controller do you have?

will the data be completely lost??

There is little to no harm in moving the RAID array to a new machine.  Make sure you keep the drives attached to the same ports on the RAID controller.  Once you've moved the array, you should be able to determine whether or not there's been data loss.

Let's put it this way, if your HDD is mounted read/write and it is anything other than a RAID1 then I guarantee every time you so much as look at a file or type in DIR, you are destroying data bit by bit.  

If this is a RAID5 and the same physical block number that contains the last-time-file-is-accessed bits is in the middle of a data file on another disk, then you WILL either destroy parity information, or you will destroy the corresponding part of the file by replacing it with incorrect data. This might be 8KB, or 64KB or even more worth of data on the file, just for even telling it to type out contents of a .TXT

Windows won't do a read-only mount like UNIX will.  

[Note - I am interpreting your situation as  you have a fake RAID and the O/S sees individual HDDs, and not a single target device for the entire RAID set]

If you have no budget to pay somebody thousands of dollars, then turn it all of, buy some scratch drives (or disks that have enough free space), and then make a bit-level copy of the physical blocks on each HDD before going further.  You'll have to do this with a LINUX machine and make sure disks are behind a non-RAID controller.

This is what a pro does, never works with the original drives to reconstruct data unless they also need to look at internal counters and physical bad block locations and such .. which is more advanced and things that we do when you pay the big bucks.)

How much is the data worth?   And vital -- exactly what controller you have?    But before you answer, just turn off the computer, you're making things worse.

ok so if i go the linux root what system will i install?? the machine is now off...

if i install, say centos with a spae srive ( i have some) will i stick in another drive?

the data is very important....and i have no budget :(

the data is the differnce between people getting paid tomorrow or not :(

WHAT CONTROLLER!!!

adaptec 29160

Then if you have a scratch drive larger than the total usable capacity of the RAID, go to runtime.org and download their RAID reconstructor package.  It is free to try, you pay to buy.

If damage is nominal, then it will let you reconstruct the RAID into a RAM image to get certain files.  You will need to reconfigure the adaptec RAID card for non-RAID (JBOD) use.

They have software on the website to boot the system into a windows CD/USB.

Note that the software is a few hundred dollars, but at least you don't pay if it won't work.  If you don't have a few hundred dollars, then sorry, you're screwed. This is too much to walk somebody through, and no guarantees anyway.

Ok, so i get say a terabyte harddrive put ubuntu server on it? then when thats built go to runtime.org download the software then boot from the cd it creates?

No, go to the runtime.org site and they have an image somewhere to build a windows PE system on DVD or maybe even USB stick to boot the system to.  You need that 1TB drive to save the reconstructed image to, or even just to save files you want to get NOW, after it figures out the RAID.

looks like its $99 dollars, money well spent if it works!

Ok wish me luck!

thanks for all your help

They will also be happy to answer your pre-sales questions.  Be sure to followup on how it works.  No guarantee, of course, you certainly have some damage so I would image the reconstructed RAID to that 1TB drive and then do a chkdsk on that drive and not touch the RAID.