I did it. you are hero!!!That was fast! Next order of business: BACKUP
I keep triple backups: internal hard drive, external hard drive, flash memory
I also do image backups of Boot drive, and keep rotating backups of them.
No system restore is necessary, boot drive can be re-imaged in 15min vs reinstall of Windows & programs in hours.

new challenge

After recovering all files, if I define the TWO ext hard drives as RAID 5, then this implies that every time I copy a file into one disk will be backed-up automatically. right?Are you abandoning the Comstar enclosure?
You are using this for data only?
Do you need more than 500GB?
Do you want both drives running all the time when the computer is on?

My experience is with RAID-1, only. I used it as the boot drives for a few months until I OBTAINED a different computer which didn't have that capability. One drive started failing and was automatically being rebuilt every couple DAYS. Didn't slow things down that much because RAID controller did all the work.

RAID-5 seems fine, but I believe RAID-1+0 would be good, too. Just don't USE RAID-0.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
See section on Organization