Intel Matrix RAID 5 failed, need help

idata · ‎06-24-2010

Hey everyone,

I have an asus motherboard with a ICH10R RAID controller on it, i had the following config:

500 GB WD drive (non-raid) (Windows 7 64-bit)

1 TB WD drive (raid member)

Had a RAID 5 set up with just one partition, everything was fine till I decided to add another drive, which was a 1 TB seagate drive, but everything went to hell When i plugged in the drive, the Intel Matrix BIOS utility at boot could not add the drive (no options for it), so i downloaded the latest version of the Intel Matrix Storage manager and preceded to add the drive, the drive successfully was added to the raid after rebuilding the array (which took about a day to complete), after which I went into Disk Management and told windows to extent the volume.

After a reboot the array reported as failed and the 4th WD drive was degraded, fine i selected the drive, mark as normal and the rebuild process restarted, this took almost 3 days (my g/f getting angry that her stuff wasn't available, she's in IT too), after it finally completed, i let it sit for a bit then i tried to access a file only to recieve an access error, opened the manager again, this time the first WD drive had degraded and the array was failed, again i marked the drive to normal and it restarted the rebuilding yet again (getting fully frustrated by now), another 3 days passes, i came back from work, it had completed, but now the array was marked as failed but all the drives checked out fine, before i could start another rebuild, my g/f decided to play with it, took out 2 drives out of the array and created a RAID 1 (for some unknown reason), it now looks like this:

1 TB WD drive (raid member)

(missing)

(missing)Spare drives:1 TB WD drive1 TB Seagate drive(both of those drives are now in a Windows-configured RAID1)I want to get my data back and i'm unfamiliar with Intel Matrix Storage Manager and why drives continued to degrade in the array (more familiar with Linux mdadm), is there also a way to add the drives back in the array and attempt another rebuild or is it too late?

Allan_J_Intel1 · ‎06-29-2010

I understand you were trying to add another hard drive to your RAID array, this is known as RAID expansion and this procedure is not supported by your I/O Controller Hub (ICH10R)

You may need to recreate your RAID again. I am afraid data and structure are no longer available.

idata · ‎06-29-2010

allan_intel wrote:

I understand you were trying to add another hard drive to your RAID array, this is known as RAID expansion and this procedure is not supported by your I/O Controller Hub (ICH10R)

You may need to recreate your RAID again. I am afraid data and structure are no longer available.

This seems incorrect as the software allowed me to perform the operation, if this funtion was not aviliable on the controller then it should have been disbaled in the software.

Regardless of this, I was able to rescue some of the data (the more important stuff anyways) and have decided to try a different approach. So after this, I attempted to start from scratch, recreate the array with the 5 drives. After formatting and mounting it in Windows, I started to once again copy the rescued data back onto the array, then yet another drive in the array failed and the raid became degraded. I'm starting to think that the controller is faulty in some way.

Currently I'm in the middle of doing a full media scan of all hard drives at work with spare computers around my desk (lets hear it for 5TB-worth of storage being scanned in a matter of 8 hours!), so far none of the drives have reported smart failures or bad media, so I'm left thinking the controller is kaput.

Once everything is back up and running, my new plan will be to create a RAID0 using 3 hard drives (controller), then using the remaining 2 for a RAID1 for backup (software), assuming all drives pass.

Thx for your reply, but its not helping.

idata · ‎06-29-2010

So after this, I attempted to start from scratch, recreate the array with the 5 drives. After formatting and mounting it in Windows, I started to once again copy the rescued data back onto the array, then yet another drive in the array failed and the raid became degraded. I'm starting to think that the controller is faulty in some way.

You say you installed the latest version of the Intel Matrix Storage manager...well took a look over to your right on your first post in "More like this" and you will see why and when you did Capacity expansion you really didn't help things.

But Intel Matrix Storage manager is no more and is now is Intel Rapid Storage Technology at 9.6 which for most I can hope for runs fine so its not likely your controller is faulty..its the drivers you are using.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2101&DwnldID=18859&lang=eng http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2101&DwnldID=18859&lang=eng

idata · ‎06-30-2010

PeterUK wrote:

So after this, I attempted to start from scratch, recreate the array with the 5 drives. After formatting and mounting it in Windows, I started to once again copy the rescued data back onto the array, then yet another drive in the array failed and the raid became degraded. I'm starting to think that the controller is faulty in some way.

You say you installed the latest version of the Intel Matrix Storage manager...well took a look over to your right on your first post in "More like this" and you will see why and when you did Capacity expansion you really didn't help things.

But Intel Matrix Storage manager is no more and is now is Intel Rapid Storage Technology at 9.6 which for most I can hope for runs fine so its not likely your controller is faulty..its the drivers you are using.

http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2101&DwnldID=18859&lang=eng http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&ProdId=2101&DwnldID=18859&lang=eng

Thx for the reply, I'll give the new software a try once i get home, I wasn't aware that Intel Rapid Technology applied to my product.

idata · ‎06-29-2010

But its listed here for Capacity expansion on the ICH10R...

http://www.intel.com//support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022304.htm http://www.intel.com//support/chipsets/imsm/sb/CS-022304.htm