raid drive issues

[gsx600]

Hi all

Tring to solve a problem on a computer I built a while ago, it's basically got 3 SATA drives, 2 200g raided together for data and 1 80g for the operating system and progs etc.

Been working fine, but now has a problem and not sure if it's a hard drive issue or a motherboard issue. I think one of the Raid drives has gone bad on me as unable to see data anymore. But if I disconnect 1 raid drive at a time it brings up the same message saying missing drive.
Also if I plug the single drive into the slots where the raid drives were this does not then work.

Anything else I can try to eliminate drive or motherboard ?
What are the chances of getting data back from drive if one is knackered ?
Can I use the one working drive as a normal single drive or is the data stored in a different format in RAID ?

Should have stuck to good ole IDE

[Smiler.]

If a drive in a raid array goes down, the boot screen usually stops at the raid utility screen before getting to the windows screen. Depends upon the mobo you have. Did you build it yourself?

Is the array with the two drives striped (i.e. 2 x 200gb = 400gb?)

Also, if your OS is on a single disk, this should boot ok as it is not part of the array.

ETA it sounds like you have a striped array, there is not much you can do in this case & your data is probably lost. What does the RAID function on the boot screen say that the array type is (usually 0 or 1 - I can't remember offhand which is striped & which is mirrored).

Edited by Smiler. on Monday 29th January 21:23

[gsx600]

Yeah stripped so you only see 1 400 g in Windows, or did anyway
With the raided conncted it takes ages for windows to boot (once you get past the various windows that pop up for configuring the raid etc), but once dissed then back to normal running speed on loading windows

[Smiler.]

gsx600 said:

Yeah stripped so you only see 1 400 g in Windows, or did anyway
With the raided conncted it takes ages for windows to boot (once you get past the various windows that pop up for configuring the raid etc), but once dissed then back to normal running speed on loading windows

I think you're out of luck with a bad drive on a striped array. Are both HDD's spinning up? Are the 200gb HDD's a pair (i.e.same make/model etc)?

For what its worth, I never used stiped only, always striped/mirrored.

[JamieBeeston]

Stripe (Raid0) means NO REDUNDENCY.

If you lost EITHER of the two hdds, you've lost EVERYTHING!

This is why RAID0 is very very rarely used, and never used in a production environment.

RAID10 (Mirrored Stripe) is what we use everywhere.

RAID0 is asking for trouble ;(


sorry.

J

[bigdods]

Check your BIOS settings. Had similar recently with a friends machine. Panic as he thought everything was lost. Turns out his motherboard battery was on the way out - the machine was able to keep time for some reason but the BIOS settings for the hard disks got destroyed - and on his motherboard (not all are the same) you had to set the bIOS to make the RAID work. Reset the settings, one new battery , one very grateful friend !

Worth checking.

Turns out that he always switched his PC off at the mains every night - now even when the PC is switched off as long as the mains is live the motherboard is fed power to keep the BIOS alive - only going to battery when the socket is switched off. So a year or so of this behaviour had weakened the battery. Lesson learned !

[Xenocide]

If your drives are identical it's always worth popping the controller card off of the bottom on a good one and slipping it on the knackered one. Saved a drive like that before!