Help with Single Drive to NVIDIA Raid 1 with Clonezilla?

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EarthBoundX5

n00b
Joined
Jun 18, 2012
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Ok, so I'll spoiler out the backstory inforamtion as I don't think it has any impact on the problem at hand, but I hate to leave out any potentially important info. EDIT: I guess spoilers don't work on this forum, so I'll just section it off...

===========================BACKSTORY START, CAN SKIP===========================
So recently my HP Pavilion Elite m9350f (before any hate, I only go OEM to save on costs) was acting strange, would slow down and randomly freeze at times. I suspected the harddrive based on the behavior, so I ran chkdsk; which returned no problems. Quick note, my single drive was somehow set to RAID 0... Not satisfied, I cloned my drive to a spare and during the process was told there was bad sectors in my pagefile partition as well as 1 in the mbr.

So I then ran HDAT overnight and woke up to no errors found... So I shutdown my pc and went about the day, came back to continue working on it to find my harddrive had randomly developed the click of death! I freaked, but was glad I at least made that last minute backup....but unforunatly it was not being recognized properly by various programs!! I figured it might be the bad sector it cloned in the mbr, so I ran a partition restore tool (I really dont remember which, it was off hirens) and was able to now see the data (not bootable, but I'd get to that when I needed to).

So next step, I made a backup again of the drive with the partitions intact using clonezilla. I then decided to actually make use of my NVIDIAs RAID controller (which from research I suspect is more of a "firmware RAID/fakeRAID") and get a RAID 1 going to prevent future hardware failure problems. I set it up, but am unable to see the drives properly. Some versions of gparted see it as a raid, but then also shows 2 separate drives and a different version shows it as just 2 separate drives. And clonezilla wont see it or either at all! So I am kinda stuck at what I should do here.
===========================BACKSTORY END, REMAINDER IS ISSUE===========================

Basically, I have 2 drives in RAID 1 using NVIDIA's MediaShield or whatever and a clonezilla backup of my previous single drive. I want to get the backup onto the RAID 1 drives and continue on my marry way. Any ideas? Is NVIDIAs RAID fakeRAID? Should I try removing the RAID, restoring the backup, and using some NVIDIA tool within Windows to setup the RAID 1? I'm just a but confused as to how to handle this as I have little experience with RAID and almost none with fakeRAID or firmware RAID (if thats what NVIDIA's is)
 
The only issue you may run into is how was your OS configured when you made the single drive image? For example, was your Hard Drive Controller setup as IDE or Compatibility? Was it setup as AHCI? Missing drivers in your OS install (What OS are you using by the way?) can cause a quick BSOD on boot. If this is the case you can read this link which will show you what you need to do to fix the driver problem.
 
kac77 said:
The Ubuntu version of Clonezilla has the RAID drivers active. Just use that and you can image and restore to raid.
Click to expand...

Alright, I'll give it a try. I was using the version on hirens, so maybe that didn't have raid drivers then?


mwroobel said:
The only issue you may run into is how was your OS configured when you made the single drive image? For example, was your Hard Drive Controller setup as IDE or Compatibility? Was it setup as AHCI? Missing drivers in your OS install (What OS are you using by the way?) can cause a quick BSOD on boot. If this is the case you can read this link which will show you what you need to do to fix the driver problem.
Click to expand...

I'm running Windows 7 on these drives, Ubuntu and MacOSX I keep on a separate drive. I'm assuming you are talking about what my hdd controller is set to in the bios at time of original install; it was and is set to RAID. Somehow my previous drive got setup as RAID 0, even though its a single drive. So I just assume that if the previous install was RAID 0, there shouldn't be any issues starting up the OS in RAID 1; unless I am mistaken.

Thanks both for the responses, when I get a chance I will try the actual ubuntu live version of clonezilla.
 
Actually, it was Windows I was referring to. If your drive(s) are connected to the motherboard controller and were set to IDE/Compat or AHCI when you made the single drive image, you will have the BSOD problem once you set it to RAID, move the image to the array and reboot.
 
Ok wow, now I am just lost....

Ok, so I tried a few more things to no avail; finally I "fixed" the issue. I wrote new partition tables to both drives for RAID, formatted both (clonezilla was not seeing if they didn't at least have a partition), I unpluged the 2nd drive set for RAID; turned off RAID, used clonezilla to copy partitions back over to the single new drive, enabled RAID for it, hooked up and added 2nd drive to RAID array, set to rebuild the 2nd drive (but it wanted to wait till I was in a compatable OS to do so), rebooted, and BAM, my Windows 7 installed booted fine (a bit slow and laggy, but Im sure it was just a cache/memory issue.

On boot, Windows tried to installed some NVIDIA RAID array drivers, failed, but then succeded on a 2nd RAID driver install. After everything was good, it I rebooted per the Windows' request, left for 10 minutes or so assuming it would want to do something with rebuilding the 2nd drive in the array auto matically on boot...came back to check, and saw my monitor was in standby, yet the computer was running (and no input device turned it on). Not too concerned, I manually rebooted the computer and noticed it wasn't even coming off standby for the BIOS screen or anything....

Really don't get it, as I didn't mess with any hardware at the time and everything was fine pre-reboot....
 
AH.... Nvidia RAID you say? I can't believe I let this go. I must of blocked out the pain I experienced with it. Here's THE suggestion.... don't use it....EVER.

I had the same issue. I would boot the machine, but nothing would come up. It was like it was stuck. The only way I could get around it was to clear the BIOS and reset it up. Eventually that stopped working. Then I just stopped using it. There was no point. Any Raid solution would be better and more stable than NV Raid.

If Windows is the only OS you run. Then either use Windows Raid or buy a cheap software raid card. My solution was to just not use it and eventually I replaced the MB (which could still read the metadata on the drives btw).
 
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kac77 said:
AH.... Nvidia RAID you say? I can't believe I let this go. I must of blocked out the pain I experienced with it. Here's THE suggestion.... don't use it....EVER.

I had the same issue. I would boot the machine, but nothing would come up. It was like it was stuck. The only way I could get around it was to clear the BIOS and reset it up. Eventually that stopped working. Then I just stopped using it. There was no point. Any Raid solution would be better and more stable than NV Raid.

If Windows is the only OS you run. Then either use Windows Raid or buy a cheap software raid card. My solution was to just not use it and eventually I replaced the MB (which could still read the metadata on the drives btw).
Click to expand...

Yep, thats exactly what I did to fix it. I power cycled everything, and it worked again, then upon another restart, what happens? SAME DAMN THING!! I really don't understand how this even happens, it makes absolutely no sense. I mean, prior to this I was working fine and technically using NVIDIA's RAID, even if it was just on a single drive (which I still don't get why it allows me to do that). I just don't get why changing to a RAID 1 from 0 would make a difference...and I really can't see why the change in harddrives would make a difference (especially since they are those new "uses less power" drives.

I'd really like to avoid using Windows' RAID because I'd prefer the option to add OSs, since the newdrives give me 1.25 terrabytes of extra space and I've been thinking of just putting my other OSs onto it as well (at the very least I want the option).
 
kac77 said:
AH.... Nvidia RAID you say? I can't believe I let this go. I must of blocked out the pain I experienced with it. Here's THE suggestion.... don't use it....EVER.

I had the same issue. I would boot the machine, but nothing would come up. It was like it was stuck. The only way I could get around it was to clear the BIOS and reset it up. Eventually that stopped working. Then I just stopped using it. There was no point. Any Raid solution would be better and more stable than NV Raid.

If Windows is the only OS you run. Then either use Windows Raid or buy a cheap software raid card. My solution was to just not use it and eventually I replaced the MB (which could still read the metadata on the drives btw).
Click to expand...

Ah, NvRAID.... People say that pain is something you can never truly remember.... They never tried NVRAID. Thank god Nvidia got out (well, were thrown out of actually) of the chipset business. Bought a bunch of Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H boards some time ago and was going to use them as HPTC/DVR boxes for friends and family. A living hell of R0 problems from day one, and never resolved....... Ended up dumping them for a loss on ebay (though I did warn people in the post planning on using RAID on the board not to buy it.)
 
mwroobel said:
Ah, NvRAID.... People say that pain is something you can never truly remember.... They never tried NVRAID. Thank god Nvidia got out (well, were thrown out of actually) of the chipset business. Bought a bunch of Gigabyte GA-E7AUM-DS2H boards some time ago and was going to use them as HPTC/DVR boxes for friends and family. A living hell of R0 problems from day one, and never resolved....... Ended up dumping them for a loss on ebay (though I did warn people in the post planning on using RAID on the board not to buy it.)
Click to expand...

So consensus is to give up on RAID until I replace the mobo (never getting a controller, have no free pci-e slots)? I just don't understand why I never had any problems before? I just don't see why changing RAID level would be any different, but I guess it sounds more common of a problem than I want to believe, haha.

If anyone wants to give some advice on Windows' RAID to convince me, else I'm gonna go back to my normal routine of a single drive, no backups or plan for HDD failure

Only real things data loss impacts for me on my main drive is bookmarks (which I've communicated via irc with devs about setting up autobackup on my personal server), insanely organized music library (which itself is technically backed up, just not the ID3 tag changes and such), save files (which I backup upon large completion of a given game), and of course crazy amounts of customized settings and such.

Still, I'd like to have prevention against hardware failure, as its the only thing I can't protect against and would be out of my control.
 
EarthBoundX5 said:
So consensus is to give up on RAID until I replace the mobo (never getting a controller, have no free pci-e slots)? I just don't understand why I never had any problems before? I just don't see why changing RAID level would be any different, but I guess it sounds more common of a problem than I want to believe, haha.

If anyone wants to give some advice on Windows' RAID to convince me, else I'm gonna go back to my normal routine of a single drive, no backups or plan for HDD failure
Click to expand...

Here are your options...
1. Change your Mobo
2. If your not dual booting consider Windows Raid. I personally don't like it though.
3. FlexRaid could also be an answer. It sits overtop of the filesystem instead of under it. You'll be able to keep your data too if you implement it.
4. Don't use RAID which isn't that bad of a deal either.

I have an nForce board powering my ZFS server temporarily and it works. Then again I've got it paired with a rather expensive HBA so I kind of avoid a lot of the crappy parts of those boards. Either way these are your options.
 
kac77 said:
Here are your options...
1. Change your Mobo
2. If your not dual booting consider Windows Raid. I personally don't like it though.
3. FlexRaid could also be an answer. It sits overtop of the filesystem instead of under it. You'll be able to keep your data too if you implement it.
4. Don't use RAID which isn't that bad of a deal either.
Click to expand...

1. Ya, won't be changing out the mobo anytime soon...I will once I upgrade the cpu; as the board is AM2 socket, so its kinda falling behind at this point.
2. Ya, I really wanna avoid Windows RAID at all costs, unless someone gives me a rationale to...
3. FlexRaid? Interesting, but that looks like another software RAID or just a fancy way of saying Cloud Backup, can't fully tell. Either way, not the option for me.
4. Yep, gonna have to go with this it looks like, oh well. I was readlly hoping to have a backup for hardware failure, but guess thats not happening with nforce crap or without relying on Windows...

Thanks all, I guess I'm just gonna not have a hardware backup and hope for the best. If anyone has anything else to post, I'll still watch this thread for alternate answers. Anything I see within a week will be helpful, as I wont be that far into using my desktop again that I'll need to go through much trouble to redo everything again.

EDIT: Now time to start posting about the other weird probelms I've had with the mobo that should make me take #1 as a route, but I'm just too stingy/without freely spendable money, haha
 
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