Need help - RAID Trouble with Highpoint RocketRAID2320

EStz

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Nov 22, 2008
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Hello


I’m in trouble. In my server I have installed a Highpoint RocketRAID 2320 with 8 drives attached, configured as two RAID5 sets:
RAID5_0: 4 x Samsung HD501LJ (500 GB)
RAID5_1: 4 x Seagate ST3500320AS (500 GB)

Some time ago I got some failure warnings about drive 6 (= drive 2 of RAID5_1). To prevent data loss I replaced it at once by a Seagate ST3750330AS (750 GB). It wasn`t accepted, but I still was able to access data. So I bought a new ST3500320AS and put it into the RAID, replacing drive 6.

After the restart the HIGHPOINT RAID MANAGEMENT CONSOLE came up saying RAID5_1 status “Disabled” (= no data access). The replace hdd is initialized and properly connected. ARRAY MANAGEMENT shows drive 6 (drive 2 of RAID5_1) as “offline”.

Drive 6 is recognized by DRIVE MANAGEMENT saying
• “CAPACITY”: 500,3 GB
• “TOTAL FREE”: 500,3 GB
• “MAX FREE”: 500,3 GB.

For all other drives DRIVE MANAGEMENT is saying
• “CAPACITY”: 500,3 GB
• “TOTAL FREE”: 0,0 GB
• “MAX FREE”: 0,0 GB.

Trouble is: I have a WHS so the OS put together both RAID sets into one volume. So the server still do boot up but I have no access to any data at all.

Installed hardware:
• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9
• CPU: AMD Athlon64 3400+
• RAM: 2 GByte
• HDD-Controller: HighPoint RocketRAID 2320
• Graphics: NVidea Riva TNT
• Network: Marvell Yukon 88E8053
• Optical Drive: LG GDR8164B

Installed software:
• OS: Windows Home Server 2003 (Service Pack 2)
• HIGHPOINT RAID MANAGEMENT CONSOLE
• Kaspersky Anti Virus

Further information:
• There is no other hdd connected to the system.
• There is no other software installed on the system.
• Boot device is a 20 GByte partition on RAID5_0.
• All hardware components (including Highpoint RocketRAID 2320) have the latest BIOS and drivers available.
• OS is updated to the latest version.


Is there a way to put the status of drive 6 to “Online” so it can be accessed by RAID5_1? Is there a way to put the status of RAID5_1 to “Enabled” so it can rebuild with drive 6?

I didn`t find any command in the USER`S MANUAL, the HIGHPOINT RAID MANAGEMENT CONSOLE or the BIOS UTILITY.

I contacted Highpoint Custumer Support a week ago but didn’t get any answer. So every kind of help would be highly appreciated.


Eugen Schmitz


PS: I’m from Hamburg, Germany. So please have mercy in case my English is not perfect.
 
Hello

Please - Is anybody out there who has an idea what to do, what to dry, whom to ask?


I’m in trouble. In my server I have installed a Highpoint RocketRAID 2320 with 8 drives attached, configured as two RAID5 sets:
RAID5_0: 4 x Samsung HD501LJ (500 GB)
RAID5_1: 4 x Seagate ST3500320AS (500 GB)

Some time ago I got some failure warnings about drive 6 (= drive 2 of RAID5_1). To prevent data loss I replaced it at once by a Seagate ST3750330AS (750 GB). It wasn`t accepted, but I still was able to access data. So I bought a new ST3500320AS and put it into the RAID, replacing drive 6.

After the restart the HIGHPOINT RAID MANAGEMENT CONSOLE came up saying RAID5_1 status “Disabled” (= no data access). The replace hdd is initialized and properly connected. ARRAY MANAGEMENT shows drive 6 (drive 2 of RAID5_1) as “offline”.

Drive 6 is recognized by DRIVE MANAGEMENT saying
• “CAPACITY”: 500,3 GB
• “TOTAL FREE”: 500,3 GB
• “MAX FREE”: 500,3 GB.

For all other drives DRIVE MANAGEMENT is saying
• “CAPACITY”: 500,3 GB
• “TOTAL FREE”: 0,0 GB
• “MAX FREE”: 0,0 GB.

Trouble is: I have a WHS so the OS put together both RAID sets into one volume. So the server still do boot up but I have no access to any data at all.

Installed hardware:
• Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-K8NF-9
• CPU: AMD Athlon64 3400+
• RAM: 2 GByte
• HDD-Controller: HighPoint RocketRAID 2320
• Graphics: NVidea Riva TNT
• Network: Marvell Yukon 88E8053
• Optical Drive: LG GDR8164B

Installed software:
• OS: Windows Home Server 2003 (Service Pack 2)
• HIGHPOINT RAID MANAGEMENT CONSOLE
• Kaspersky Anti Virus

Further information:
• There is no other hdd connected to the system.
• There is no other software installed on the system.
• Boot device is a 20 GByte partition on RAID5_0.
• All hardware components (including Highpoint RocketRAID 2320) have the latest BIOS and drivers available.
• OS is updated to the latest version.


Is there a way to put the status of drive 6 to “Online” so it can be accessed by RAID5_1? Is there a way to put the status of RAID5_1 to “Enabled” so it can rebuild with drive 6?

Please help

Eugen
 
Eugen,

Same thing just happened to me. Hope you have a backup for your data. I personally have had 4 drives die on my rocketraid 2340 and tech support is horrible.
I finally did get ahold of someone about the 'disabled' status and they sent me a piece of software that supposedly would fix it, allowing for data retrieval.

This is the email they finally sent:

"Hello,

Attached is a RAID recovery utility - it may be able to remove the disabled status.
The disabled status is assigned in cases where multiple disks have failed, or the parity is faulty.
Try using the all of the original disks first (including the drive originally listed as failed).

It requires that the system be booted to DOS mode, and is able to access the card's BIOS/firmware.
It is a graphical utility that is similar to our controller cards' BIOS display.

Instructions:

The utility is as a compressed file (.zip format).

It's DOS based, and graphical - it responds to standard keyboard inputs.
If you need a DOS boot diskette or CD image, we recommend visiting this site (downloads are free):

http://www.bootdisk.com

To run, boot to a DOS floppy, and use the following command:

raidtool.exe

Use the arrow, Alt, and Tab keys to navigate the windows, and the Enter key to select a device (disk, array), and execute a command.

It is capable of many different functions.
The function you will want to use are:

Save Array Info
Delete Array
Create Array

1) Use the arrow/tab keys to highlight the array, then press the Spacebar or Enter to select it.

2) Click Alt and use the arrow keys to highlight the "Array" tab. Press down and select the "Save Array Info" option - this will save the current RAID configuration to the floppy - we can have engineering analyze this necessary (default disk order is sequential - channels 1 through 4).

Next, use the "Save MBR" option - as above, this will save the configuration data to the floppy.

3) Next, use the Delete option, and delete the RAID arrays.
This option will not delete actual, useable data from any of the disks, and will not damage the partition tables - it was designed specifically not to. It is simply a way clear out any junk RAID data, or "disabled" status from the disks.

4) Next, use the Create option and recreate the array. This is similar to the card's BIOS menu.
Do not worry about the Build options in this case.
If it insists you select an option, choose "No Initialization".

Once recreated, exit the utility and reboot - make sure the card's BIOS recognizes the array correctly (Press Control + H when prompted).
If not, you can always run this utility again - it can be used as many times as needed. Do not attempt to rebuild or verify the array unless you can access the volume. "

I can email you the software if you like, however I must note that I did not actually have to use it in the end, as my problem started with a failed drive and when I swapped out the drive for a new one, the problem started. I returned the damaged drive to the array, got my data off, then I swapped out the drive, remade the entire array and all is good for now...

I would NEVER buy a highpoint product again. 4 drives failing on their card in 1.5 years is ridiculous!

My email: steve (at) semillerimages (dot) com

*steve
 
Obvious question, but did you initialize the new drive?
 
In my particular case, yes, I did initialize the new drive in the bios - but it still did not allow the raid array to come out of the disabled status. In past occasions, where I had a drive fail (this was the fourth drive to fail with this rocketraid 2340 card), I was able to insert the new drive, initialize, and rebuild the array... this time I was not able to do so. When I finally got tech support on the phone - which was only after I talked to their operator and told her I wanted to complain to customer service - they told me that probably two drives failed and they emailed the above email with the software to supposedly get rid of the disabled status. When I finally reinserted the old drive, as per the instructions above, I was able to retrieve the non-backed up data. But when I took the old drive out, added a new drive it went back into the disabled status so I had to delete the array with the option selected of 'do not delete old array data' in their array management software. My WIN XP system did not recognize the array anymore after it was rebuilt (took 8 hours) and I had to reformat and repartition the array anyway!
I never have had any other raid card, so I don't know if this is a common occurance... but I do know that #1 the highpoint hot spare option did not work for me, #2 the apple raid system at my work has never had a drive fail in the two years since it has been up and running and #3 (knock on wood) I have never EVER had a drive fail on me before... ever since I first owned a hard drive all the way back to 1991.

*steve
 
@ Steve
Thanks a lot!!! I really appreciate your help!!! At least there is a chance to save my data. I will come back as soon as I have any results what kind ever. Thank you again.

@ Dew: Obvious question, obvious answer - yes, I did. But thank you very much for trying to help.


Eugen
 
I have used Areca 1220s and a Promise RAID card. On the Areca I have had several "failures", most of which were SATA cables coming unseated when I was in the machine, installing memory etc. I Reseated the cable and it came right back up. I did have one drive actually drop out, I ended up putting it in another system, initializing it, putting it back in the Areca and it functioned fine for awhile then dropped off again. I ended up just replacing that drive.

So I have had exactly one bad drive over 5 years with two different servers.

The Areca is awesome about just taking the drives, inserted in any order on any channel, and determining which piece of the puzzle each drive is. I even moved all of my drives from a 1220 to a 1261 ML and they were just recognized and booted right up.

I have heard bad things about Areca tech support, but after 5 years of using two servers with 1220 and now one 1261ML, I have never needed their tech support.
 
Hi John

This was my first try, too (but turns out to be a big mistake, because the data on the failed HD were gone). I took the failing HD, put it on the PC, did a format, and everything was fine. I put it back on the server and initialized it. HD was accepted. During rebuild failure again, and RAID broke this time. After hangup and restart RAID was disabled. I bought a new HD and initialized it. But it was not accepted by the controller/RAID.
With RAIDTOOL (thank you very much for the help, Steve) I was able to put the RAID back to work with the new drive. But this did't help at all. In the end, half of my data is lost (me not knowing by now which half is gone). Nearly every file is corrupted. I haven't been able to archieve data integrity so I cannot delete defect files etc.

I will switch to Server2008 and Perc 5/i and start all over again :-(

Eugen
 
Sorry about your data loss!
Fortunately I had all my data backed up on external drives... RAID is not a backup solution unfortunately.

*steve
 
Hi Steve

Bad luck - another drive is gone. This time it's a Samsung from RAID5_0. I really don't like that.

By the way, that are the first drives I lost at all since 198? when I bought my first scsi drive for my Atari ST. :mad:

Eugen
 
I ran into a similar problem. As it turned out, I built a RAID 5 array but the controller never actually initialized the array. Windows allowed the format and everything seemed fine but I actually had a DOA drive. When I would remove the drive the array would go disabled and would not let me replace the drive. So make sure if you have a RAID 5, you double check the background initialization or you will never be able to recover any data you put on that array.
 
Hi,

I've just had a major problem with my RAID Array. Does anybody have the recovery utility for the Rocket RAID 2320? If they do can they send me it please.

Please send it to derek (dot) dunipace (at) tiscali (dot) co (dot) uk.

Thanks in advance.

Derek
 
Sadly I am also in need of the Raidtool utility. I have contacted Highpoints tech support by phone and email, but they are lazy idiots that refuse to support their customers.

Please send me a PM if you have the utility.

Thanks!
 
I would love to get a copy of raidtool.exe. As usual, highpoint support is unresponsive. If anyone has this, could they send it to me or send a link? The data on the array is luckily NOT critical, but this will be an exercise to see what can be recovered.

In a 6-drive array, I got an warning that Drive 6 was throwing errors, but the entire array was still up and the data apparently intact. When Drive 6 was replaced and the machine rebooted, the array had been "disabled" because Drive 5 had failed to spin up at all. I retraced my steps and even replaced the data cable that connected four of the drives. No go.

I then checked the drive (5) and sure enough it was dead. I tried swapping electronics with another drive, same model and firmware, but all the drive did was clunk. So I have the array ready to go with drive 5 removed, but the array's now in a disabled state, and I want to see if raidtool.exe helps.

BTW I also know I can probably send the drive off to someplace (hopefully Seagate, under warranty) to see if they can swap electronics, but I would still require that RAIDTOOL utility, I suspect, to re-enable the array.

No matter what happens, I will change this array to RAID 6 to give me the extra redundancy. Can't blame Highpoint in the least for the Drive 5 failure, but it SURE would be nice for them to respond to a simple request for a utility.
 
Can anyone upload/send me the raidtool.exe? I am stuck in the same place on a raid 5 with one drive that crashed, I cannot bring the raid out of the disabled status.

Thanks

Daniel
 
is this raid card a hardware raid card? or software based? seems expensive for software but very cheap for a hardware based card?
 
I have a Rocketraid 2340 with 16 HDDs attached.
All 16 HDDs are ST31500341AS made in Thailand.
I bought 19 of these in all, and there are only 4 with no reallocated sectors.
So first of all: hands off this series, pure crap.
After I found that out, I always had a look at the Storage Health Inspector, and this showed me, that
HDD-11 had 15 Bad sectors. So I decided to change HDD-11.
I replaced HDD-11 with a new one, the rebuild started and everything seemed fine until at about 30%
the rebuild stopped, because suddenly HDD-10 went from status “OK” to “failed”.
Then the RAID5 was not accessible any more.
I still had the old HDD-11, but I could not find a way to reintegrate it into the RAID.
Strange was that the "failed" HDD10 showed as normal in Highpoint-BIOS, but always after booting the OS
in the highpoint Management it showed as "failed"

Then I got the raidtool.exe from Steve(BIG THANKS TO YOU AGAIN!), which can atm be found at http://www.highpoint-tech.com/
> Support > Utility and Documents.

I did the following:
I put aside the new HDD11(on which the rebuild was 30% in progress) and replaced it with the old HDD11 with the 15 bad sectors.
Then I booted the DOS-boot-disc and started raidtool.exe.
There it showed me(like in the bios) 2 Raid5-Volumes: 1 with only HDD11 present and all other drives missing, and one with only HDD11 missing and all other drives "normal".
I deleted both RAID5 Volumes and created a new RAID5 Volume with all the 16 disks like it was before the time I started the rebuild.
In the creation mask I said:"no initialisation, keep old data". If you select any other way of initialisation than "keep old data"
the old data will be destroyed.

After the raidsetup I rebooted and now the RAID5 is on status "normal" with all data still available.
Strange with this is, that the formerly failed HDD10 is now again back to status "normal".

Because the RAID is still(because of the crappy ST31500341AS HDDs) in a critical state, I decided
to buy a new RAID-Controller, new HDDs, setup a new RAID and copy the data to the new RAID.
For the new RAID I decided to make a RAID6. You loose 2 disks for redundancy,OK, but if 1 disk needs replacement,
there can fail another HDD at the rebuild, and data is still there.

I had some experience with RAID in the past which showed that the rebuild process is always a very stressy time for the remaining HDDs in a RAID,
and often at that time another HDD is likely to fail. In the future I would always make RAID6 or better.
 
Hi, I now have the same problem.
I have a RR2304 with 4 external drives as RAID 5. Suddenly two drives disappeared from the RAID and are available as new initialized disk. I cannot convince the BIOS to assign them back to the array. So all 4 disk are ok but to left the array :(
...and that shortly before I move to a new QNAP NAS! damn shit, it's not backuped yet!

So maybe last chance is that nice little "raidtools.exe"

Can pls somebody send it to me: dj-slick at gmx dot net

I really appreciate this... it is 5 years of collecting 3 TB of music and videos. All my "business" data is safed fortunately.
 
is this raid card a hardware raid card? or software based? seems expensive for software but very cheap for a hardware based card?

23XX raid card from HPT is a hardware assist card - if you look at the spec, there is no mention of raid processor

**
 
I've managed to hunt down raidtool.exe and put it up permanently on my blog for you fellow forum users.

Please head on over to the blog post here.

raidtool solved part of my problem, now I hopefully will be able to recover the data.

Hardware-RAID? Never again! :)
 
we should all remember that RAID is no substitute for a real backup of data.... it is merely meant for uptime of data with a drive failure or increase speed....
 
I realize this is a REALLY old post, but I'm hoping if anyone on the internet has a copy of raidtool.exe, it'll be someone on here.

For anyone curious, I have a RR644L running a RAID5 array of five WD 5TB drives. No problems for years until the other day when the power went out. Now it's saying "disabled" in the web UI and the only thing I can really do is unplug it from the GUI. If I reboot after that, I can access the array in Win10 right after I log in, but after a few mins it'll say inaccessible. If I look at the events in the web UI, it says all five drives failed (how likely is that?).

Really hoping HighPoint's raidtool can help.
 
I realize this is a REALLY old post, but I'm hoping if anyone on the internet has a copy of raidtool.exe, it'll be someone on here.

For anyone curious, I have a RR644L running a RAID5 array of five WD 5TB drives. No problems for years until the other day when the power went out. Now it's saying "disabled" in the web UI and the only thing I can really do is unplug it from the GUI. If I reboot after that, I can access the array in Win10 right after I log in, but after a few mins it'll say inaccessible. If I look at the events in the web UI, it says all five drives failed (how likely is that?).

Really hoping HighPoint's raidtool can help.
While it is of course possible (though not probable) that all 5 drives failed at once, the more likely scenario is the power rail the drives are on has failed/is failing (though power supply failures when related to drives usually manifest the other way, failing on reboot where the spinup of the drives takes the most power.) It is most likely that the card itself is finally failing. Do you have a backup of the data?
 
While it is of course possible (though not probable) that all 5 drives failed at once, the more likely scenario is the power rail the drives are on has failed/is failing (though power supply failures when related to drives usually manifest the other way, failing on reboot where the spinup of the drives takes the most power.) It is most likely that the card itself is finally failing. Do you have a backup of the data?
Send me an email to semillerimages at gmail dot com and I will send you the file and instructions
 
While it is of course possible (though not probable) that all 5 drives failed at once, the more likely scenario is the power rail the drives are on has failed/is failing (though power supply failures when related to drives usually manifest the other way, failing on reboot where the spinup of the drives takes the most power.) It is most likely that the card itself is finally failing. Do you have a backup of the data?
Well, since they definitely get past bootup, and the array comes up shortly (before bombing out a few mins after boot), it could be the card. I was actually wondering if that may be the issue (again, since it affected all the drives). I could try getting another card and seeing if it works fine. I have no backup of the data.... it's simply too large an array. I don't have anything especially important (no documents, pictures, etc)... just a shit-ton of applications, music (backed up to google cloud), and every TV show/movie I've every ripped/downloaded.

Send me an email to semillerimages at gmail dot com and I will send you the file and instructions
Done. Thank you!
 
If anyone is curious, here is what the event logs show:
 

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If anyone is curious, here is what the event logs show:
Are all 5 drives on the same power supply rail? If so, try moving them to two different rails (or at least cables). If it continues to present the same problem, it is most likely the card (but still could be bad power since all the failures occur within a second or two.
 
Are all 5 drives on the same power supply rail? If so, try moving them to two different rails (or at least cables). If it continues to present the same problem, it is most likely the card (but still could be bad power since all the failures occur within a second or two.
Unfortunately, they are in a simple Syba 5-bay enclosure (part # SY-ENC50118).

I was able to find a new RR644L card on Ebay for $50. Hopefully that does the trick, otherwise, I'll probably try a new enclosure.
 
Unfortunately, they are in a simple Syba 5-bay enclosure (part # SY-ENC50118).

I was able to find a new RR644L card on Ebay for $50. Hopefully that does the trick, otherwise, I'll probably try a new enclosure.
Unfortunately, those chinese USB/eSATA towers mostly come with claptrap power supplies. If you are going to try a new replacement card, try a seller that takes returns in case it isn't the card. If the enclosure needs to be replaced, replace it with something SAS and either run an enclosure with an Expander (dump the SATA port multiplier) or run 2 SFF cables from the SAS card to the enclosure (or best if you have room in your existing case and have the power budget for it do it that way.) Since you are running Windows, if you want this machine to host the array than replace the card with an Areca or LSI hardware RAID card. If you want to build a separate box as a NAS, then run a software raid like ZFS which will harden you against data loss (as much as possible, remember RAID != backup.) One last thing, if you redo the layout/setup then go to double parity, RAID5 has a number of issues that make it significantly less able to survive failure, especially if you lose another drive during rebuild (which happens more ofthen that you might think.)
 
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Unfortunately, those chinese USB/eSATA towers mostly come with claptrap power supplies. If you are going to try a new replacement card, try a seller that takes returns in case it isn't the card. If the enclosure needs to be replaced, replace it with something SAS and either run an enclosure with an Expander (dump the SATA port multiplier) or run 2 SFF cables from the SAS card to the enclosure (or best if you have room in your existing case and have the power budget for it do it that way.) Since you are running Windows, if you want this machine to host the array than replace the card with an Areca or LSI hardware RAID card. If you want to build a separate box as a NAS, then run a software raid like ZFS which will harden you against data loss (as much as possible, remember RAID != backup.) One last thing, if you redo the layout/setup then go to double parity, RAID5 has a number of issues that make it significantly less able to survive failure, especially if you lose another drive during rebuild (which happens more ofthen that you might think.)
The seller does take returns. I was actually going to swap the cable, but tossed all the extras a while back thinking I'd never need them.

As for more robust storage, I actually have a full rack of servers in my garage, complete with HP C7000 chassis and 8 blades. I run a storage shelf with FreeNAS hosting, using ZFS. This little thing has served me quite well for digital media storage. Even if I lose everything on it, it's not the end of the world. I would of course like to recover it if possible, just for convenience sake.
 
Still waiting for the card, but I have some new information. I decided to take the enclosure out and make sure all the cables were fine, as I had just recently done my semi-annual cleaning of it (along with my HTPC). I take them outside, clean out all the dust and crap, and put them back. Sometimes more than semi-annually. Anyway... everything looked fine, but when I was plugging everything back in, I decided to check the dip switches on the back of the enclosure and immediately noticed they were wrong. Instead of 0-0-1-0 for RAID5, they were set to 0-1-1-0 (RAID1/RAID10). I'm guessing that I bumped them when I was cleaning it last. I'm not sure if that would've actually done something, as the instructions say you need to change the dip switches, then hold the reset button on the back of the enclosure for 15 seconds before power cycling it (which is obviously not something I did). I put them back and rebooted everything, but there was no change. I decided to try the 15 second reset and reboot everything, and the array actually seemed fine for a few seconds after a reboot (I could see my data). I immediately logged into the web UI and it said "rebuilding, 45%". I was excited, but within a few mins, everything failed (same errors) and the array went back to disabled.

So now I'm waiting for the card, hoping that is what it is.
 
In case anyone was curious how this all turned out... the first replacement card 644L I got was a dud. The OS didn't even detect it. Got my money back and ordered what I thought was another 644L, but when I got it, it turned out to be a 644. It took forever to arrive, during which time I swapped out the cables and the enclosure with zero luck. Each time, it would start rebuilding, then die within 10-15 mins. I also tried the tools, which someone was kind enough to send, but they wouldn't work with the 644L.

I finally got the card, but didn't even realize it was different until the old drivers didn't work. After figuring out it was different, I got the drivers sorted and it immediately found the array and started rebuilding. Two days later, it was back to 100% healthy. I still am not sure what the difference is (other than it's a bigger PCB than the 644L, with more hardware), but it did the trick.

Again, nothing seriously important was on this array, but it was still worth recovering. Glad I was able to.
 
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