Change RAID-controller, will information remain on drives?

[Fillzter]

Is it possible to change RAID-controller and still maintain all data on the striped harddrives?

I used the controller from "Silicon Image", but now my motherboard burned up, so I bought one with nvRAID. I use RAID-0 (striped). It would be a disaster if I changed to nvRAID and the setup deleted all info on my drives.

Also, if I used to use a striping of 64 KB and then change it to 128 KB, will the information on the drives remain?

 

[bob4432]

unfortunately i think you are s.o.l....as the raid controller tells the data how it is to be divided up between the hdds and i don't think there is a standard for that (although there should be for situations like yours)

hopefully i am wrong and somebody will prove me so...

 

[BigCoolJesus]

nope, you cant do it

when you change to a new raid controller, you have to repartition the drive, to tell it how you want to stripe it (16,32,64,etc)

so yes, your S.O.L

sorry

 

[Fillzter]

Someone, please prove him wrong!

If this proves to be the case, it means I have to buy yet another card, but that have a Silicon Image Controller. That would suck..

 

[Fillzter]

yargh! One can only hope I get a new board from my reseller. Crap.

 

[BigCoolJesus]

no matter what kind of controller you use, unless its the same exact one you started out with your going to lose your data


even if you use a new silicon image contoller that was the same exact one, you still have to go in with a boot image (like for the first one) and setup to your specific drives, where then you will still lose your data


sorry, but theres really no way around it

 

[Fullmetal Chocobo]

Back up, and redo it. That's it....
Tas.

 

[Fillzter]

Now my stomach starts to turn... There is NO WAY I can afford to loose all this data. There has to be a way to make som sort of backup! Someone?

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: tasburrfoot78362
Back up, and redo it. That's it....
Tas.

i dont think he can backup though, he said his motherboard burned up, and he just bought a new mobo, meaning hes not running off of his RAID right now, so theres no way for him to back-up

unless im wrong, in that case, yes, use norton ghost to backup your raid, then change the controllers

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: Fillzter
Now my stomach starts to turn... There is NO WAY I can afford to loose all this data. There has to be a way to make som sort of backup! Someone?

are you using the RAID right this second?


or do u not have it hooked up at all to any controller?

 

[bob4432]

maybe you could get the exact same m/b/controller somewhere.... used on ebay or fs/ft here? what exact board was it? including rev #... contact the people who actually make the controlle, but when you have it make the array, it will probably wipe it out

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: bob4432
maybe you could get the exact same m/b/controller somewhere.... used on ebay or fs/ft here? what exact board was it? including rev #... contact the people who actually make the controlle, but when you have it make the array, it will probably wipe it out

yea, even if he uses the same exact board with the same controller, its going to wipe his drives clean, it has to to create the partitions needed for the striping

 

[Fillzter]

I'm at work right now. Bought the new mobo one hour ago.

The one I started out with was the "Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe". Now I bought "Asus A8N-E". Both use the same chipset (nForce 4).

I haven't hooked up anything yet.

How do I backup my raid drives with norton then? Should I install the drives as normal SATA-drives (without RAID-0 configuration)?

Perhaps there is a way to extract all data from the drives if I install them as normal drives. Perhaps norton can somewhat simulate a RAID-config to backup all the data?

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: Fillzter
I'm at work right now. Bought the new mobo one hour ago.

The one I started out with was the "Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe". Now I bought "Asus A8N-E". Both use the same chipset (nForce 4).

I haven't hooked up anything yet.

How do I backup my raid drives with norton then? Should I install the drives as normal SATA-drives (without RAID-0 configuration)?

Perhaps there is a way to extract all data from the drives if I install them as normal drives. Perhaps norton can somewhat simulate a RAID-config to backup all the data?

that wont work at all

you wont be able to get anything off the drives as regular SATA drives


RAID 0 halves everything to each drive, meaning if you have a folder with 4 files, it essentially (but more complexly) just puts 2 on one drive, two on the other, although it could be broken up into many different parts (depending on the partition size you had selected)

not to mention, windows would never boot off one drive alone.


sorry, but theres no way for you to get your data back (unless maybe you paid $800 bucks to those rip off company's that say they can recover data from any hard drive)

 

[Varun]

Originally posted by: Fillzter
Now my stomach starts to turn... There is NO WAY I can afford to loose all this data. There has to be a way to make som sort of backup! Someone?

Yes when the drives work you can back them up, ghost them, do whatever. Burn your data to DVDs for storage to keep it.

Unfortunately once the RAID controller goes you can not get the data off of the drives, which is one of the biggest problems with RAID, hence you have to back stuff up.

We're all sorry that you are losing all of your data, however take this as a positive. I bet you never let this happen again, and maybe your story will encourage other people to back up their data.

 

[Fillzter]

I'm about to throw up. That was my LIFE in there! So, let's say you own a motherboard and decide to reset the bios (replace the system battery, for example), then you also loose all data on the harddrives?

Then lets try this aproach. Say I buy two other of these harddrives (WD raptor 36 GB) and RAID-0 them. Then when that's done, I replace them with my two other drives. That would work, right?

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: Fillzter
I'm about to throw up. That was my LIFE in there! So, let's say you own a motherboard and decide to reset the bios (replace the system battery, for example), then you also loose all data on the harddrives?

Then lets try this aproach. Say I buy two other of these harddrives (WD raptor 36 GB) and RAID-0 them. Then when that's done, I replace them with my two other drives. That would work, right?

Honestly, i dont think it will, and if it means that much to you its worth a shot


but as far as i know, when you RAID 0, the controller sets up its own "profile" if you will for those two drives alone.
If you were to hook up two new drives, RAID 0 them, then put in your two old drives, im not certain that the controller would just pass them off as the same drive


like i said, i dont know for certain, but if its worth it to u, mine as well try

 

[Fillzter]

well, it should work. I don't think the controller store some kind of checksum at an internal memory. Can't see how that would make the device work any better..

hmm.. I guess I could buy them, try, and then sell them..

Why would anyone make a system this unsecure?

 

[Arcanedeath]

It depends on the raid contorler, some controlers let you create the raid set w/out formating the drives and if this is the case w/ your old mb if you replace it w/ a board w/ the same raid contorler and bios (for the SI raid contorler) then you may be able to salvage your data if the card doesn't format the drives when it initilitazes (sorry spelling) them, I know someone that moved a raid 0 setup from one MB to another w/ both using the SIL 3112 chipset raid controler onboard both boards w/out issues (altho he did have a backup of the important stuff)

 

[Jojo7]

I hate to say it, but this is your own fault for poor planning.
1.) You set up raid 0 with important stuff and had NO backups. You should have known with raid 0, you have to be extremely careful about data backup.
2.) Hardware failed and you are screwed.

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: Arcanedeath
It depends on the raid contorler, some controlers let you create the raid set w/out formating the drives and if this is the case w/ your old mb if you replace it w/ a board w/ the same raid contorler and bios (for the SI raid contorler) then you may be able to salvage your data if the card doesn't format the drives when it initilitazes (sorry spelling) them, I know someone that moved a raid 0 setup from one MB to another w/ both using the SIL 3112 chipset raid controler onboard both boards w/out issues (altho he did have a backup of the important stuff)

no, the silicons on the Asus' make you format the drives


yea man, i dont see how your going to make it work at all

sorry for your loss

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: BigCoolJesus

Originally posted by: bob4432
maybe you could get the exact same m/b/controller somewhere.... used on ebay or fs/ft here? what exact board was it? including rev #... contact the people who actually make the controlle, but when you have it make the array, it will probably wipe it out

yea, even if he uses the same exact board with the same controller, its going to wipe his drives clean, it has to to create the partitions needed for the striping

Incorrect. I had a RAID0 array with my Epox 4G4A+. The board went bad; I returned it to Fry's and got a replacement. Connected the cables back up and everything was perfectly fine.

 

[lansalot]

Haven't tried it and I won't hold out much hope, but:

"Damaged RAID recovery. If OS cannot recognize your RAID, you can create a virtual RAID from its components. Such virtual RAID can be processed like a real one."

http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

Incorrect. I had a RAID0 array with my Epox 4G4A+. The board went bad; I returned it to Fry's and got a replacement. Connected the cables back up and everything was perfectly fine.

*nods*

Identical hardware will do the trick.

Also, you can sometimes get away with this with slightly different revisions of, for example, the Dell Poweredge controllers, whereby the set can be reconstructed using information written to the disk. This is how the high-end stuff does it - what about grabbing an SI controller off ebay to see if it can read it?

 

[BigCoolJesus]

Originally posted by: X-Man

Originally posted by: BigCoolJesus

Originally posted by: bob4432
maybe you could get the exact same m/b/controller somewhere.... used on ebay or fs/ft here? what exact board was it? including rev #... contact the people who actually make the controlle, but when you have it make the array, it will probably wipe it out

yea, even if he uses the same exact board with the same controller, its going to wipe his drives clean, it has to to create the partitions needed for the striping

Incorrect. I had a RAID0 array with my Epox 4G4A+. The board went bad; I returned it to Fry's and got a replacement. Connected the cables back up and everything was perfectly fine.

hmm, when i RMA'd my asus board back in last august i got the same exact board (of course) but i had to reformat the drives to use the sata controller again

i guess it was a fluke for me then

 

[lansalot]

Perhaps a different BIOS version - I had a BP6 and remember seeing a note in a new BIOS saying that you would lose old RAID config.