TICG
asked on
Trying to rebuild a RAID Array on a Adaptec 2610SA
Best not ask how I got into this situation, but anyway, here's my problem that I'm hoping someone can help with:
I've got 3x 80Gb Hard Drives and a 6 port Adaptec 2610SA SATA RAID Controller installed in a Dell box.
2x Hard Drives were working (until I played with them). The 3rd was blank.
Some how I killed (status - FAILED) the RAID Array (by removing the drives when powered off)
I cloned (using Acronis True Image Server) one of the working hard drives (for saftey reasons) and initilised the 2x working hard drives that make up the array and began the rebuild using Adaptec's BIOS utility.
Once the rebuild was finished, I tried starting the machine.... No OS Found.
Both hard drives are blank. (Thank goodness I made an image of one of them)
Now, I've cloned the 2x blank hard drives so I have 3 copies of the original Windows installation.
My questions are:
How do I rebuild the array without wiping the data on the 2x hard drives OR how can I copy the 3rd hard drive onto a rebuild array.
Any help you could provide would be wonderful, as my client would like their computer back in 8 hours.
I'll sit here and await any suggestion and will post a responce as soon as incase someone wants to "talk" me through it.
Thanks heaps in advance.
Regards,
TICG (Tom)
I've got 3x 80Gb Hard Drives and a 6 port Adaptec 2610SA SATA RAID Controller installed in a Dell box.
2x Hard Drives were working (until I played with them). The 3rd was blank.
Some how I killed (status - FAILED) the RAID Array (by removing the drives when powered off)
I cloned (using Acronis True Image Server) one of the working hard drives (for saftey reasons) and initilised the 2x working hard drives that make up the array and began the rebuild using Adaptec's BIOS utility.
Once the rebuild was finished, I tried starting the machine.... No OS Found.
Both hard drives are blank. (Thank goodness I made an image of one of them)
Now, I've cloned the 2x blank hard drives so I have 3 copies of the original Windows installation.
My questions are:
How do I rebuild the array without wiping the data on the 2x hard drives OR how can I copy the 3rd hard drive onto a rebuild array.
Any help you could provide would be wonderful, as my client would like their computer back in 8 hours.
I'll sit here and await any suggestion and will post a responce as soon as incase someone wants to "talk" me through it.
Thanks heaps in advance.
Regards,
TICG (Tom)
ASKER
Hmmmm... (twiddling thumbs)
While I'm waiting for someone to help, I'll explain what I doing...
I've now reinitialised the 2 working drives (which has formatted them) but have used Quick Init.
I'm in the process of making yet another backup of the original OS onto a 4th drive.
Once done, I'll use the 4th drive in conjunction with Acronis True Image Server and the newly initialised array and try to clone the 4th drive onto the array.
Still very much looking forward to some words of wisdom. Computer is due back at my client in 7 hours (and it's the middle of the night and I need some sleep)
Cheers,
Tom
While I'm waiting for someone to help, I'll explain what I doing...
I've now reinitialised the 2 working drives (which has formatted them) but have used Quick Init.
I'm in the process of making yet another backup of the original OS onto a 4th drive.
Once done, I'll use the 4th drive in conjunction with Acronis True Image Server and the newly initialised array and try to clone the 4th drive onto the array.
Still very much looking forward to some words of wisdom. Computer is due back at my client in 7 hours (and it's the middle of the night and I need some sleep)
Cheers,
Tom
ASKER
........middle of the night and I need some sleep).....
as soon as I get this problem resolved.
as soon as I get this problem resolved.
ASKER
Am now running Acronis True Image Server from Hiren's Boot CD.
Cloning hard drive #4 to the new RAID array. Seems to be working, although the other cloning operations only took 25 mins or so.
This one is reporting an hour and twenty to complete the job.
I hope this is a good sign.
I've read that these Adaptec 2610SA RAID Controllers do have throughput performance issues, so maybe that's where the time delay comes in.
It's 2 in the morning, and I am shagged. Got a big day ahead and must sleep, so I'm going to leave Arconis running and will pick up where I left off.
I hope that someone finds this self-made solution (if it works) helpful.
Regards,
TICG (Tom)
Cloning hard drive #4 to the new RAID array. Seems to be working, although the other cloning operations only took 25 mins or so.
This one is reporting an hour and twenty to complete the job.
I hope this is a good sign.
I've read that these Adaptec 2610SA RAID Controllers do have throughput performance issues, so maybe that's where the time delay comes in.
It's 2 in the morning, and I am shagged. Got a big day ahead and must sleep, so I'm going to leave Arconis running and will pick up where I left off.
I hope that someone finds this self-made solution (if it works) helpful.
Regards,
TICG (Tom)
ASKER
Yawn..... 4 hours sleep...
yeeha.... All the above worked. Now booting into Windows.
Still got 2 drives with the orginal OS, so I better do the job I was commissioned to do (not break the RAID Array) namely change the partition sizes.
Fingers crossed that Partition magic does it's stuff.
Regards,
Tom
yeeha.... All the above worked. Now booting into Windows.
Still got 2 drives with the orginal OS, so I better do the job I was commissioned to do (not break the RAID Array) namely change the partition sizes.
Fingers crossed that Partition magic does it's stuff.
Regards,
Tom
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ASKER
Partition Magic hung (before it started making any changes...) so I stopped there and returned the PC to the customer without having done the partition resizing.
I'll do that another time (once I've had some more sleep.)
Thanks for checking in.
Regards,
Tom
I'll do that another time (once I've had some more sleep.)
Thanks for checking in.
Regards,
Tom
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Thanks
Tom