RAID problem

dokkktor · Post by **dokkktor** » Tue Aug 19, 2003 1:49 am

Can someone direct me to where I can find out info about trying to fix my RAID?

I believe it may have come apart? but then came back together again. (I am not sure of the best way to explain this)

The day after I fixed all that Blaster worm crap, when booting up, it would only read that I had 1 drive in the RAID array. It would then not let me boot into windows since it couldn't detect an operating system. I turned it off and on a few times, and then it booted up into windows XP no problem. It worked fine for a few more days then it did it again. - Only one drive in the array, then no operating system.

After rebooting a few times it will now list both drives in the RAID array. But no operating system. I tried to reinstall windows, but it won't let me unless I format the drives.

I used a third hard drive (on a different channel) to get the system running again. Now when I boot up to windows XP it reads that there are drives in the RAID, but that there is no info on them and that they need to be formatted.

My question is:

Is there any information out there about how to try and recover the data from the RAID hard drives?
I have found a few sites that say they can try and recover the data but only if I bring it into them and pay their fees, etc...
Obviously if they can do it so can I but I am not sure where to get this information on how to go about it.

Anyone have any ideas?

The data on the disks is not all that critical, but trying to replace the 50 GB of files and info that were on those hard drives is going to be a bitch.

Any help is appreciated.
Thanks.

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Tue Aug 19, 2003 7:26 am

Need more info:

I assume this was a RAID Stripe array (no redundancy?) not a RAID Mirror array?

I also assume you're using a hardware RAID controller not software? What brand and model?

Sounds like one of your drives became corrupt. That's the problem with RAID Striping - either drive takes a dump you lose all your data.

If the data is corrupt then I'm afraid you're screwed.

You can try running Norton Disk Doctor on it from a DOS boot disk (you need to make an emergency boot floppy with Norton Utiltiies). If you're lucky then MAYBE Norton can repair the damage to the array, but don't get your hopes up.