Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® RST, RAID
2045 Discussions

Raid 5 array is not accessible after a disk replacement & rebuild

idata
Employee
2,609 Views

I have a Gigabyte EP45-UD3P bios V10 motherboard with a ICH10R controller. After replacing a failed disk, accepting the 'resize' option to use all available space for the volume, and rebuilding, the volume is not accessible. When the computer is rebooting, it hangs after showing the ICH10R device and the number of drives attached to it (just before the DMI POOL is verified). If I leave any of the 4 SATA cables connected the computer hangs but if I disconnect them all it will boot. Connecting each drive after the computer booted lets them appear in the RST application window and it alerts me the volume is failed. I can rebuild by clicking on the 'return to normal' option and it rebuilds with a size of 2862Gb but I cannot see the volume in windows explorer.

My partition software shows the volume is there at its former size with the rest of the volume as unallocated space. The RST UI shows it as 2862GB.

In diagnosing this problem I have stripped out as much unrelated hardware and software as I could and have run through multiple rebuilds without achieving a restored volume.

If someone more knowledgeable or experienced than I am recognizes the issue and can offer a solution I would appreciate it very much. For me, success means at least getting the volume rebuilt and accessible so I can get the data from it.

Thanks.

Message was edited by: lkanna&# 13; &# 13; The response from PeterUK was the closest to the correct answer. The MBR was shot but my partitioning software was able to copy the data to a new partition when all other utilities could not. The data was recovered. Thanks PeterUK!.

6 Replies
idata
Employee
1,146 Views

After replacing a failed disk, accepting the 'resize' option to use all available space for the volume, and rebuilding, the volume is not accessible

You played around too much your meant to rebuild not resize even if it was available...such a number if things can go wrong if you don't keep it simple...what may of likely happened here is you used a MBR that limited the partition to 2TB but with you resizing the array bigger then 2TB as you was rebuilding it broke it.

Run this see if you can recover your files.

http://www.diskinternals.com/raid-to-raid/ http://www.diskinternals.com/raid-to-raid/

idata
Employee
1,146 Views

Peter, That was a very fast response - Thank You !

I tried the raid-to-raid app but it says it cannot access the volume. I'm centering my actions on the MBR as you have suggested and my machine is applying a partiion change right now - should be done in a day or so... [:-( We'll see... Intel has thoughtfully made other options unavailable at certain times in my mucking about - I wonder why they left this 'resize' snake pit option available for us poor souls to fall into?

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,146 Views

I'm centering my actions on the MBR as you have suggested and my machine is applying a partiion change right now - should be done in a day or so... [:-( We'll see...

I did say "what may of likely happened here is you used a MBR that limited the partition to 2TB but with you resizing the array bigger then 2TB as you was rebuilding it broke it." not do anything like that.

You likely have destroyed the array by doing that.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,146 Views

I actually considered the array gone before I wrote my post. I have a backup and as always, most of the data is recoverable but there is that little recent bit that I want to get back if I can. I am now more interested in two things: 1) is any data recoverable and 2) do I want to use an Intel raid solution in the future. This effort will tell me both so I think its worth the investment of time. You seem very knowledgeable about these things. What might you suggest to replace the Intel solution?

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,146 Views

1) is any data recoverable

Was data recoverable before rebuilding and the array failed.

If it was just one drive that failed in RAID 5 but the array is listed as failed then yes data is recoverable and RAID to RAID software allows reading of most array types when that happens and if not there are other software tools that you may have to buy should it not work. But most of the time when that happens the array is degraded and you should ideally backup then.

A rebuild rarely causes problems but if the drives are not well cooled corruption can happen and the drives are fully stressed end to end of the array as not only does it rebuild data and parity but the free space data and parity too mainly because things like TrueCrypt do hidden volumes, not Initializing the volume before hand with something like that can cause problems.

2) do I want to use an Intel raid solution in the future.

You may not want to use Intel's ICH or PCH raid solution in the future after your experience this is not to say it doesn't work when it works it works and others have had the same problem as you with RAID 5 (or other) not doing what it should for what ever reason and it can happen on any RAID controller one used when this happens.

What might you suggest to replace the Intel solution?

None

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,146 Views

What operating syste are you using? Is it WinXP by chance?

0 Kudos
Reply