• Some users have recently had their accounts hijacked. It seems that the now defunct EVGA forums might have compromised your password there and seems many are using the same PW here. We would suggest you UPDATE YOUR PASSWORD and TURN ON 2FA for your account here to further secure it. None of the compromised accounts had 2FA turned on.
    Once you have enabled 2FA, your account will be updated soon to show a badge, letting other members know that you use 2FA to protect your account. This should be beneficial for everyone that uses FSFT.

Raid 1 hard drive failure question

D

DarkCyber

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 14, 2003
Messages
1,273
I have a computer running Raid 1 (Mirror) and in the Raid configuration it is now showing the Raid as "degraded" status. So, if one of the hard drives is (or has failed) how do I access the data on the other drive? I do not know yet which is the good and bad drive. Can I turn off Raid and use the good drive to boot from or do I have to put another good hard drive in place of the bad one and rebuild the Raid? I have never dealt with this...so please feel free to dumb it down for me...lol!

UPDATE: This is someone elses computer she told me at one time one hard drive went bad and supposedly someone fixed it for her and installed a new drive. Upon looking in the computer...there is only one hard drive :( There is one WD 250 GB hard drive that is showing that it is in Raid 1...how is that? Could the other guy have just stuck a new drive in an never turned off Raid? I don't want to screw anything up on her data...if it's not already.

How can I get this drive back to a single drive without screwing up the data on it?

Thanks!
 
Last edited:
In theory you should be able to plug the drive into any PC and read the data. RAID 1 = mirroring.

If it's no longer needed, copy (backup, backup, backup) the data to another drive. Take down the array, and reformat the drive. Copy data back on to the drive and carry on.
 
ryang said:
In theory you should be able to plug the drive into any PC and read the data. RAID 1 = mirroring.

If it's no longer needed, copy (backup, backup, backup) the data to another drive. Take down the array, and reformat the drive. Copy data back on to the drive and carry on.
Click to expand...

If there is only 1 drive in the computer and I turn off Raid 1 will that do anything to the drive in there or just turn off mirroring? Also, if I turn off the mirroring, then should the hard drive just boot like normal?
 
Yeah, I panned on making a complete backup first.

The choices under the raid configuration utility are:

1. Create RAID Volume
2. Delete RAID Volume
3. Reset Disks to Non-RAID
4. Exit.

If I want to computer to see this as a non-raid I assume I would simply either turn off raid or either select option 3. Since this is a Raid 1 (mirror) turning off the RAID or option 3. shouldn't do anything to the data on the disc..correct? Because all the hardware part of the RAID is doing is simply copying a second copy to the second hard drive...but since there is no second hard drive anymore that's where some of the questions come in.
 
After the bit for bit backup I would pull out the original disk and put the copy in a non raid port and / or disable the raid completely in the bios by setting it back to ACPI or even IDE. Although this may create an unbootable system depending on the drivers loaded.
 
If the drivers for single drive (IDE or AHCI) use have not been installed then if you change the BIOS setting it will not boot (BSOD at boot). Just putting it back in RAID mode will get you to a bootable state again.
 
The problem the pc is having is rebooting. I have tried to make a regular image backup with Acronis and a bit by bit and on both the progress bar comes up but never starts...then the pc reboots. So, looking for the issue with that first. Never stops.

So far the hard drive checks out OK and so does the PSU.
 
Does it cause a problem to leave a single drive in a RAID 1 setup? This computer is running Windows 2003 Server and was setup with 2 hard drives at one time, but one of them went bad and someone pulled the bad one out leaving only one drive in there.
 
Have you looked at the SMART status on the drive? Perhaps the drive is malfunctioning.
 
It is a WD and I have run DataLifeGuard Tools on it and the drive checks out perfect.
 
DarkCyber said:
Does it cause a problem to leave a single drive in a RAID 1 setup? This computer is running Windows 2003 Server and was setup with 2 hard drives at one time, but one of them went bad and someone pulled the bad one out leaving only one drive in there.
Click to expand...
Nope, RAID 1 is simply Mirroring. If you unplug 1 hard drive, it will say "Degraded" and continue to operate as a single hard drive system. When you plug in a hard drive and rebuilt the RAID, the RAID controller is going to copy everything from the old HDD to the new HDD and done.
 
drescherjm said:
Did you try the extended test?
Click to expand...

No, going to run that in just a few minutes. I ran the quick test and it gave no errors. Was checking memory. I can get it to boot into the desktop and then it just reboots. I can boot to the desktop in safe mode and it will stay for maybe a few minutes and then reboot. I have turned off automatic reboot on errors. It has two memory sticks...have pulled them out one at a time and still does it. Going to try some different memory.

I hate these kind of problems...like finding a needle in a hay stack :eek:
 
David-Duc said:
Nope, RAID 1 is simply Mirroring. If you unplug 1 hard drive, it will say "Degraded" and continue to operate as a single hard drive system. When you plug in a hard drive and rebuilt the RAID, the RAID controller is going to copy everything from the old HDD to the new HDD and done.
Click to expand...

Thanks!
 
I leaning toward some kind of a hardware problem because it has even rebooted on me when I have booted the pc up with an AVG Rescue Disc and tried to run a scan. It rebooted while trying to make an image backup with Acronis boot disc as well. So, I don't think it is anything software related at all. Just finished running a full WD Data Lifeguard test no errors at all...clean.

So, must be memory, cpu, or motherboard. About to try some completely new memory in it and test the whole computer with my hardware tester and see what comes up.
 
Just to let everyone know how the RAID 1 question ended up. I cleared the CMOS, which set the board back to default everything including turning off RAID. The hard drive boots up perfectly with no ill effect whatsoever. Now I just have to track down what is causing the reboots. I am down to CPU and motherboard, everything else checks out OK.
 
DarkCyber said:
Just to let everyone know how the RAID 1 question ended up. I cleared the CMOS, which set the board back to default everything including turning off RAID. The hard drive boots up perfectly with no ill effect whatsoever. Now I just have to track down what is causing the reboots. I am down to CPU and motherboard, everything else checks out OK.
Click to expand...

Hi. DarkCyber,

What motherboard and CPU model are you dealing with? Have you examined the capacitors on the motherboard for any that may be bulging or discolored? Seems to remind me of symptoms some boards displayed in the "Bad Cap" era.

Just a thought.

Chuklr
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top