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raid5 issues

8

8steve8

Limp Gawd
Joined
Oct 4, 2005
Messages
189
ok so ive had a 4x2TB(samsung HD204UI w/firmware patch) raid5 array working normally for about a month.
It was in a h57 gigabyte motherboard using the intel raid with windows 7 x64.


Today I got an intel h67 motherboard, so I upgraded the intel raid drivers to 10.1.0.1008
from 9.6.0.1014, and I'm not sure if i checked after a reboot, but it caused no problems. I swapped in the new dh67 motherboard, and my array status was "failed". 2 of the 4 drives listed themselves as members, while the other two drives listed themselves as non-members. I tried going back to the old h57 mobo, and downgrading the raid drivers, but the issue remains. It's not port dependent, 2 of the drives always come up as non-members regardless of what port or motherboard they are plugged into.

the screenshot should show that the SNs match, which begs the question why the software doesn't realize the drive is a member of the array:
both.png


I'd like to know if anyone has experienced anything similar, and what should i do, can i force the drive to be recognized as a member (without wiping data)?
 
Last edited:
Red Falcon said:
Sounds like a hardware mismatch or compatibility issue.
Click to expand...

meaning what exactly? as i said i put the drives back into the origional motherboard, installed the origional version of the drivers, and it didn't fix it.
 
Your data is still on your disks; but don't try anything 'stupid' or you lose your ability to recover your data!

You should probably try an Ubuntu Linux RAID recovery. This could be very very simple:
1. Download LiveCD ISO from ubuntu.com and burn to disc
2. Boot from LiveCD and click 'Try Ubuntu' when the box appears
3. Now click the menu 'Places' and select 'Home', a new window appears
4. You should see a left panel with clickable items; your RAID volume and data should be in this list. Clicking it should make your data visible.

Trying can't hurt. And yes, Ubuntu Linux actually can 'read' your RAID disks. If you don't see your RAID volume listed, you could try several other things. But try the Ubuntu method first it could be your easiest option.
 
sub.mesa said:
Your data is still on your disks; but don't try anything 'stupid' or you lose your ability to recover your data!

You should probably try an Ubuntu Linux RAID recovery. This could be very very simple:
1. Download LiveCD ISO from ubuntu.com and burn to disc
2. Boot from LiveCD and click 'Try Ubuntu' when the box appears
3. Now click the menu 'Places' and select 'Home', a new window appears
4. You should see a left panel with clickable items; your RAID volume and data should be in this list. Clicking it should make your data visible.

Trying can't hurt. And yes, Ubuntu Linux actually can 'read' your RAID disks. If you don't see your RAID volume listed, you could try several other things. But try the Ubuntu method first it could be your easiest option.
Click to expand...

thanks i'll try that and report back.
 
so I'm in ubuntu 10.10 now, and no there is no raid volume, keep in mind this is not like a windows driver issue, the raid controller's firmware/bios lists the array as failed, and lists 2 drives as members, and the other two as non-members, so switching OSs wont magically make the array normal, but maybe linux has some tools to force the discs on the raid array?

Would greatly appreciate help, $10 paypal to the man/woman who contributes the most to me fixing this.
 
I'm betting that the new RAID controller was bad, corrupted the array, and when you put the old RAID controller back, it identified the array as broken.

I'm not sure if Intel has a recovery method within the firmware or a software suite designed to fix something like this.

This is why FlexRAID is bad, all of the weaknesses of software and hardware RAID, but none of the advantages of either.

I hope this works out for you as I'm not really sure there is a fix for it. I'll keep looking around.
 
Red Falcon said:
I'm betting that the new RAID controller was bad, corrupted the array, and when you put the old RAID controller back, it identified the array as broken.

I'm not sure if Intel has a recovery method within the firmware or a software suite designed to fix something like this.
Click to expand...

Well it behaves exactly the same now with the new/old controller, and everything else on both controllers are fine.
 
At the moment I'm less concerned with how it happened, and more concerned with what to do now, unless the former helps me do the latter.
 
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You can try recovery using RAID Reconstructor, or manual recovery under Linux or FreeBSD. You also can re-create the RAID5 array, preferably on your older motherboard. If the same parameters are used, this should give you a running raid5 again, perhaps with a bit of damage, but that should get you going i guess.

The danger of the last mentioned procedure, is that wrongly created arrays would destroy your data instantly as the rebuild is started. So you should have a hard copy of the binary contents of each HDD before you try that.

In other words, you should be careful not to lose the possibility of recovering your data, if it's important. Also consider letting an expert look at it.

Good luck!
 
8steve8 said:
Well it behaves exactly the same now with the new/old controller, and everything else on both controllers are fine.
Click to expand...

It may behave the same on the surface, but you said there were different software/firmware installations. This may have corrupted the drives. You'll have to check Intel's documentation at this point on your RAID controller.

Next time, double check to make sure each are identical, not only in hardware, but in the software/firmware as well. Some controllers (especially cheap ones) are more sensitive to these kinds of problems.
 
sub.mesa said:
You can try recovery using RAID Reconstructor, or manual recovery under Linux or FreeBSD. You also can re-create the RAID5 array, preferably on your older motherboard. If the same parameters are used, this should give you a running raid5 again, perhaps with a bit of damage, but that should get you going i guess.

The danger of the last mentioned procedure, is that wrongly created arrays would destroy your data instantly as the rebuild is started. So you should have a hard copy of the binary contents of each HDD before you try that.

In other words, you should be careful not to lose the possibility of recovering your data, if it's important. Also consider letting an expert look at it.

Good luck!
Click to expand...

Do remember he is using FlexRAID, not software RAID, so the rebuild process will be dependent on the controller at this point. If Linux and FreeBSD can do this though, I'd like to know how.
 
Dear OP,

Just one more try, can you please download Fedora 14 LiveCD to try,

1. I check both Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14 packages, at the time of release, Fedora 14 appears to have a slightly more updated DMRAID package, which is software dealing with FakeRAID.

2. Again, do not do anything that will modify the system, just boot the Fedora 14 LiveCD and see whether the Intel Software RAID config can be recognized. If FakeRAID is re-activated, then best to copy the data out to external drive as fast as possible.

Edit : Another difficult effort is to have Linux installed to external drive, system update to latest DMRAID you can find, then boot this external Linux on you target system. The reason is maybe some distributions have updated DMRAID to track Sandy Bridge release, thus more chance of success. Though I agree Fedora is usually very up to date with latest hardware. But as of now, Fedora full hardware support is still pending for all SB setup.
 
Last edited:
lightp2 said:
I check both Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14 packages, at the time of release, Fedora 14 appears to have a slightly more updated DMRAID package, which is software dealing with FakeRAID.
Click to expand...

Ah, this is what I wanted to know, thanks. :)
 
lightp2 said:
Dear OP,

Just one more try, can you please download Fedora 14 LiveCD to try,

1. I check both Ubuntu 10.10 and Fedora 14 packages, at the time of release, Fedora 14 appears to have a slightly more updated DMRAID package, which is software dealing with FakeRAID.

2. Again, do not do anything that will modify the system, just boot the Fedora 14 LiveCD and see whether the Intel Software RAID config can be recognized. If FakeRAID is re-activated, then best to copy the data out to external drive as fast as possible.
Click to expand...

but again, even if fedora can see the raid array, it'll see a failed array with no good data, since even the raid firmware thinks there are 2 drives missing, does it have FakeRAID tools to manipulate what drives are members of what array?

i found this, appears to be a very similar problem:
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/260132-32-cmos-clear-ich10r-windows7-raid5-failed
 
1. I do not have deep understanding of how DMRAID works, but do understanding that FakeRAID software keep meta-data on disks.

2. DMRAID is continuously updated to keep track of latest issues per those metadata and new hardware/firmware changes.

3. Sandy Bridge is new hardware. You also updated Intel RAID Software version. There could be an issue where the metadata format/info updated into a state that Windows software\BIOS do not expect.

4. Many times those new metadata revisions are conveyed to FOSS for official support purposes, in this case, DMRAID. So your hope is that the latest DMRAID version may have already incorporated those changes. My understanding is DMRAID will examine the actual metadata on disks to try to reconstruct the FakeRAID array.

Good luck.

Edit : the readme dated Nov 2010, but I think the Fedora 14 LiveCD DMRAID is July 2010. Either Fedora 14 LiveCD or you boot most up-to-date Linux with latest DMRAID using external drive on the target system. I am not sure about which is latest, I just look at the date of package or file

http://people.redhat.com/heinzm/sw/dmraid/readme
 
Last edited:
lightp2 said:
1. I do not have deep understanding of how DMRAID works, but do understanding that FakeRAID software keep meta-data on disks.

2. DMRAID is continuously updated to keep track of latest issues per those metadata and new hardware/firmware changes.

3. Sandy Bridge is new hardware. You also updated Intel RAID Software version. There could be an issue where the metadata format/info updated into a state that Windows software\BIOS do not expect.

4. Many times those new metadata revisions are conveyed to FOSS for official support purposes, in this case, DMRAID. So your hope is that the latest DMRAID version may have already incorporated those changes. My understanding is DMRAID will examine the actual metadata on disks to try to reconstruct the FakeRAID array.

Good luck.

Edit : the readme dated Nov 2010, but I think the Fedora 14 LiveCD DMRAID is July 2010. Either Fedora 14 LiveCD or you boot most up-to-date Linux with latest DMRAID using external drive on the target system. I am not sure about which is latest, I just look at the date of package or file

http://people.redhat.com/heinzm/sw/dmraid/readme
Click to expand...

oh thanks a lot, I'll take a look and try it out, and report back here.
 
BTW, Finally if the data is extremely critical to you, and you have enough spare hard disks

1. Either data salvage specialist, OR

2. Binary clone (exact, every bit, think example dd, 4 disks to 4 clone disks, use the exact clone disks to test your recovery, keep the original disks safe somewhere else). Do this under very calm circumstances.
 
8steve8 said:
why don't the raid controller mfgrs make utilities for this stuff?
Click to expand...

These are very cheap controllers. All a FakeRAID controller is is a HDD controller with special firmware which allows it to "trick" the OS into seeing a single drive when multiple drives are present within the container.

Also, I don't think they are expecting people to switch to new/different mobos with the array, regardless of whether the same controller is used or not.

This is why FakeRAID is nearly garbage, imo. It has none of the advantages of software and hardware RAID, but it has all of their weaknesses.

You get what you pay for...
 
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