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epichero22Flag for United States of America

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Breaking a Windows RAID 1

We have two 1 TB drives using RAID 1 in a PC that contains the boot partition.  Ever since we upgraded to Windows 10, We've been having problems with it constantly having to re-sync, taking several hours to come back online, all the while experiencing very slow performance.  Here are my questions:

1. Is it possible that one of the drives is bad?
2. If I break the mirror, do I have to do anymore configuring, such as having to program new boot information?
3. Will rebuilding the mirror help correct this issue?

Thanks!
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McKnife
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I ran the Western Digital Lifeguard program and all of them passed the SMART check.  I didn't have the opportunity to run any of the scans at this moment.  But I will try doing that later.

I think the primary drive - the one that contains the boot and crash dump - constantly says "Rebuilding."  This may be the problematic one, but I'm not clear on what to expect since the client lives out of state and it would be difficult for me to go there in person.  If I set the second hard drive as a primary boot in BIOS, or disconnect the power from the bad HD, will it automatically work?  I'd assume to allow the PC to complete synchronization first and then do anything else after.
When you disconnect a drive, the system will still work and one of the two boot entries will start the system, of course. You don't need to change the boot order in the bios.
Yeah but what if one of the drives is malfunctioning?  I'm assuming to disconnect that one, or BIOS may still continue using it.
Please take a virtual machine with two virtual disks and "play" with them until you know every bit about software raid 1 in windows. It will not take long :-) You can excercise removal and rebuild and anything. You can change the boot settings using msconfig if you need to.
MSConfig only lists "C:\Windows" as a boot path; before it would have other info like partition number, drive number, etc.  Not sure if this is going to be a concern but I'm assuming it's as easy as changing the drive paths for my example.
Oh yeah, I tried running WD LifeGuard and it hangs at roughly 90%.  Not sure if this is a problem or if it's the synchronization that's stopping it.
Ok, that would mean, there is no "windows raid 1" = Raid created through disk management in the OS being used but rather a raid controller on the mainboard or a raid card even. Can clarify the setup?
Yes, it's a Windows RAID 1.  We didn't use the on-board RAID.  I can see all my drives inside of Computer Management.
Ok, did you use diskmgmt.msc or storage spaces to setup your mirror? I am asking, because I never used storage spaces for a mirror and I wonder what st.sp. would do to the boot options. diskmgmt.msc would add a 2nd boot option called "windows 10 - secondary plex" or the like, which could be seen and modified using msconfig, if I am not mistaken.
Please also copy and paste the output of the command (on an elevated command line)
bcdedit

Open in new window

for me.
you posted : "I ran the Western Digital Lifeguard program and all of them passed the SMART check"  that's not enough; you need to run the long test  - it takes a couple of hours per drive i guess
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Why automate? Let the test run, it will stay open until the computer reboots. Some tests even write log files.
You should be able to close the question now by selecting helpful comments.
I believe that the OS was just corrupted and nothing was wrong with the RAID 1 controller or any of the hard drives.  Reformatting and re-enabling the RAID showed no problems.