danieloneill
asked on
RAID Striping: Failed array - what to do?
I have an Asus K8V-SE Deluxe motherboard and have been using the onboard SATA RAID controller to link two disks in striping mode.
I just moved a cable for a fan so I could put the side of the case back on (machine running) and an SATA data cable came off one of the drives.
Turned the machine off immediately - the monitor went off.
Booting back up after reconnecting I get a message that the Array is "offline". No repair options in the BIOS.
Two parts to my question - how f*cked am I... and what can I do to get some data back?
Don't care about Windows, apps etc - I will find a spare drive to install Windows on now without the SATA drives but I can't afford to be without the data. Damn ironic that I was putting the side of the case back on and already had a blank DVD in the drive ready to do the backup less than a minute later.
I just moved a cable for a fan so I could put the side of the case back on (machine running) and an SATA data cable came off one of the drives.
Turned the machine off immediately - the monitor went off.
Booting back up after reconnecting I get a message that the Array is "offline". No repair options in the BIOS.
Two parts to my question - how f*cked am I... and what can I do to get some data back?
Don't care about Windows, apps etc - I will find a spare drive to install Windows on now without the SATA drives but I can't afford to be without the data. Damn ironic that I was putting the side of the case back on and already had a blank DVD in the drive ready to do the backup less than a minute later.
rindi
Exactly which raid did you implement and on which of the to SATA controllers?
ASKER
Sorry, I forgot that there were two RAID controllers. Thank you for your message though ... it's calmed me down a little to know someone is out there :-)
I used the Promise FastTrak 378 controller, it has BIOS revision 1.00.037 and reports "Problem found with Array 1" on bootup beneath the screen I'd normally see which says "2+0 Stripe". I use RAID 0 and now have rining in my ears "Level 0 -- Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance" and I can see those words whenever I close my eyes!
Pressing Ctrl+F I get into the Fastbuild Utility 2.01 which confirms the drives I have - two identical Western Digital 10,000rpm drives at 37019 MB striped to one drive at approx 70 GB visible in Windows. The drive's names show in Fastbuild Utility as SATA WDC WD360GD-00FNA0 (both identical).
The two drives show as Channel 1 and Channel 2, both on "Mode" U6 (with U at the foot of the screen explained to be UDMA), but Channel 1 shows as being "Free" while Channel 2 shows as being on "Array 1".
I used the Promise FastTrak 378 controller, it has BIOS revision 1.00.037 and reports "Problem found with Array 1" on bootup beneath the screen I'd normally see which says "2+0 Stripe". I use RAID 0 and now have rining in my ears "Level 0 -- Striped Disk Array without Fault Tolerance" and I can see those words whenever I close my eyes!
Pressing Ctrl+F I get into the Fastbuild Utility 2.01 which confirms the drives I have - two identical Western Digital 10,000rpm drives at 37019 MB striped to one drive at approx 70 GB visible in Windows. The drive's names show in Fastbuild Utility as SATA WDC WD360GD-00FNA0 (both identical).
The two drives show as Channel 1 and Channel 2, both on "Mode" U6 (with U at the foot of the screen explained to be UDMA), but Channel 1 shows as being "Free" while Channel 2 shows as being on "Array 1".
ASKER
Just before typing my previous comment I called Vogon, they quote 85 UK Pounds x2 to look at the drives and estimate that their recovery charge would be 1000-2000 pounds. That'd be over 9 working days, they have express services for more money but I can't really afford that - ideally not even that time but certainly not that money. They did give some clue to the problem thugh, that the NTFS "MFT records" have become either corrupt or if I'm lucky just out of sync. I'm never lucky so that means they're corrupt, but that doesn't mean anything to me :-)
I previously bought a Pro licence for http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm which says it can restore from "Broken RAID or spanned volumes", but I see no information how... and knowing how much of the dark smelly stuff that I'm already in, I realise it's not a time for guessing, so the machine stays off for now. Any hints with this software's successful use would make my day, week, month and year!
I'm NOT looking for a system recovery, I'm realistic and have the machine written off as dead. I'd be content with copies of just half a dozen files, would be happy with copies of just a couple of folders, and would be over the moon with a whole copy of "My Documents". Once the operation comes to its conclusion - either happily or suicidally - I know now to opt for Mirror and not Stripe... the little extra speed over the year I've had it going has done nothing for me in comparison with my aging of 10 years this afternoon alone!
I previously bought a Pro licence for http://www.quetek.com/prod02.htm which says it can restore from "Broken RAID or spanned volumes", but I see no information how... and knowing how much of the dark smelly stuff that I'm already in, I realise it's not a time for guessing, so the machine stays off for now. Any hints with this software's successful use would make my day, week, month and year!
I'm NOT looking for a system recovery, I'm realistic and have the machine written off as dead. I'd be content with copies of just half a dozen files, would be happy with copies of just a couple of folders, and would be over the moon with a whole copy of "My Documents". Once the operation comes to its conclusion - either happily or suicidally - I know now to opt for Mirror and not Stripe... the little extra speed over the year I've had it going has done nothing for me in comparison with my aging of 10 years this afternoon alone!
Just check the other link a gave you, it might work.
ASKER
Thank you for the link... I didn't see your second comment because I was still typing my two. I'm just freeing up a spare hard drive so that I can use it to try with the Runtime application. Have you used the application before?
I found the Quetek help info for the RAID recovery on its Help menu, it asks questions I've no idea of the answers to - so the Runtime application looks good straight away because the first entry in the instructions says that it can figure out the information itself.
I'm going slowly and carefully because I know one bad step will wipe out my chance of getting anything back.
I found the Quetek help info for the RAID recovery on its Help menu, it asks questions I've no idea of the answers to - so the Runtime application looks good straight away because the first entry in the instructions says that it can figure out the information itself.
I'm going slowly and carefully because I know one bad step will wipe out my chance of getting anything back.
Good strategy!
ASKER
All of my data is back, I didn't spend a penny, and I didn't use any utilities to do it.
The last post at https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21121252/Promise-378-RAID-0-2-0-stripe-on-Asus-P4c800-E-now-reads-offline-and-slave-drive-is-now-free-after-working-fine-for-months.html by Maelfluc did it for me, quoting his message:
"1) Delete the arrays.
2) Rebuild them again.
This takes less than 20 secs, and after rebooting everything worked 100% as before!"
I did this by hitting CTRL+F to enter the Promise RAID BIOS, deleted Array 1 while opting not to delete the boot (? something... don't delete it anyway) records, then went straight to creating a new array, still RAID 0, still with the discs in the same order and cables. There's an option to just create the array without wiping the discs, and that's all - save that and reboot: hello Windows. As Maelfluc says, the Promise chapter in the ASUS manual does indeed confirm data is not lost by doing this, and my experience is proof.
I've of course now done full backups to DVD, have had my Rev drive reconfigured to backup all of my data as I create/modify it, and have added a spare IDE drive and am running a 2am copy of all my docs and data from the RAID0 drives to the IDE drive: three backups... I'm not getting my fingers burned like that again!
Thanks for your posts rindi, I'm grateful for your time and suggestions - but am not sure I can award points because my solution came elsewhere. Of course I want to give the points to Maelfluc because it was his/her post that saved my bacon big time - perhaps now I need advice on the closure of this question as much as I needed with my data restoration! I've detailled here as fully as I can the steps I took because I'm sure they'll be useful to someone some day.
The last post at https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/21121252/Promise-378-RAID-0-2-0-stripe-on-Asus-P4c800-E-now-reads-offline-and-slave-drive-is-now-free-after-working-fine-for-months.html by Maelfluc did it for me, quoting his message:
"1) Delete the arrays.
2) Rebuild them again.
This takes less than 20 secs, and after rebooting everything worked 100% as before!"
I did this by hitting CTRL+F to enter the Promise RAID BIOS, deleted Array 1 while opting not to delete the boot (? something... don't delete it anyway) records, then went straight to creating a new array, still RAID 0, still with the discs in the same order and cables. There's an option to just create the array without wiping the discs, and that's all - save that and reboot: hello Windows. As Maelfluc says, the Promise chapter in the ASUS manual does indeed confirm data is not lost by doing this, and my experience is proof.
I've of course now done full backups to DVD, have had my Rev drive reconfigured to backup all of my data as I create/modify it, and have added a spare IDE drive and am running a 2am copy of all my docs and data from the RAID0 drives to the IDE drive: three backups... I'm not getting my fingers burned like that again!
Thanks for your posts rindi, I'm grateful for your time and suggestions - but am not sure I can award points because my solution came elsewhere. Of course I want to give the points to Maelfluc because it was his/her post that saved my bacon big time - perhaps now I need advice on the closure of this question as much as I needed with my data restoration! I've detailled here as fully as I can the steps I took because I'm sure they'll be useful to someone some day.
No problem, Ask for a refund/PAQ.
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