RAID help

[Alizarin]

Ok... I'm at the end of my rope with this. Here's what happened.

I shutdown my computer with a 2 drive RAID 0 array (both 30gb) to install my new wireless keyboard. Upon powerup, it said I had a bad stripe on one of the drives. Shutting down again, I checked all the cables (unplugged and replugged) and power connectors and jumpers. I powered it back on and it didn't give me the error but it gave me a disk read error when it tried to boot. Checking the BIOS settings, it appears that it suddenly decided my drives weren't a RAID array anymore and were individual drives...
So to rebuild the array I have to destroy all the data on the drives (according to the bios) and that just can't happen (important data that hadn't been backed up yet and I need to get off)

So to my question... is there a way to tell the bios that these are once again striped drives (since they were in the first place and haven't changed) without having to erase everything on them? Or something else I can do to at least recover as much off them as possible before being forced to rebuild the array?

<edit>
I thought I'd put in some of the specs for the system: Athlon 1.4ghz, ABit KG7R mobo, 512mb PC 2100 DDR, 2 30gb Western Digital drives (WD300BB I think) and the usual assortment of other stuff
</edit>

 

[Nothinman]

I would think one of the drives is going to die anyway, you don't get I/O errors for nothing. You're probably best off calling Abit, or whoever makes the RAID controler, and talking to them if the data is that important.

Didn't you see the whole "one drive dies and whole array goes with it" warnings posted everywhere?

 

[Alizarin]

Well, I was aware of the risks... next week I woulda had a nice 0+1 action in after I got paid... just sucked ass that this happened with pretty much no warning... and it was the NEW drive I bought when I built the computer too

 

[AnyMal]

Did you receive any warnings prior to installing wireless keyboard? If not, perhaps new keyboard "stole" one of your drive's I/O addresses and it caused the problem. Another things, what OS are you using? If it's NT/2000/XP pro I would disconect wireless base station, plug in old keyboard and try to boot with Last Known Good configuration. Remember, always ask yourself "what has changed since last successful boot ?" and go from there.

Another thing you may try is to use Windows 95/98 boot floppy and go to DOS and try to recover data manually. I am not sure if it'll work for RAID but sure worth a try. Hope this helps, dude

 

[Nothinman]

I would disconect wireless base station, plug in old keyboard and try to boot with Last Known Good configuration. Remember, always ask yourself "what has changed since last successful boot ?" and go from there.

Another thing you may try is to use Windows 95/98 boot floppy and go to DOS and try to recover data manually. I am not sure if it'll work for RAID but sure worth a try.

The problem is if the RAID BIOS doesn't think they're an array everything will see them as 2 seperate disks so DOS can't get to his data and Win2K won't boot.

 

[Alizarin]

<< If it's NT/2000/XP pro I would disconect wireless base station, plug in old keyboard and try to boot with Last Known Good configuration >>



Excellent idea, but one problem: It won't even boot (and as a side note, it was Win2k)

I had a stroke of thought though... if I did recreate the array (when it claims everything would be destroyed) does anybody think it would be possible to scan the drives after reinstallation of Win2k with one of those Undelete programs and could maybe get something back? I know raid fragments the file to 2 seperate drives, but who knows, it might actually work...

I'm still open to suggestions though, as the box is a doorstop until I can get time to head to my apartment to get the raid drivers disk and OS disk for Win2k (bleh)

 

[Alizarin]

Here's a small update:

It's sat there for a week or so.

That's pretty much it... yesterday I ordered 2 more drives for the array though, so when I get those I'll put them into a 0+1 configuration. I guess it's safe to assume that everything is gone when I rebuild the array... I just was thinking the undelete thing might work (see above post)

Anyways, thanks for the help for those who have responded, and if you think of anything, I'm still holding off on it until at least Tuesday when the drives come in

 

[n0cmonkey]

What if you setup the new drives in the same array settings the others were setup in (if they are the same type of drive and everything), then once its all configured, switch out the new drives with the old drives. That may "trick" the controller into thinking it has the raid setup and if one of the drives hasnt gone bad you *MAY* be able to retrieve your data. It seems to me it wouldnt be a bad attempt, definitely not the best though. Just my ignorant ramblings I guess

 

[Alizarin]

Hell, it's worth a shot... if it don't work, then it don't work, but at least it was a try right?

 

[Alizarin]

Well, it didn't work The BIOS must store each drive's signature or serial number or whatever you wanna call it and won't let you swap like that...

So I tried using Drive Copy to go from the bad one to one of the new ones, but went afk to get a drink while the computer booted to it. Drive Copy didn't start and I came back to Windows 2000 scandisk deleting "orphan file fragments"... so I guess any further efforts will be futile.

Stupid BIOS won't let me create a 0+1 now though, claims I don't have enough drives although all 4 are there and recognized.