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I have asus p3k-35 (or something like that) and it comes with a raid controller on board. I set it up with raid0 2x500G drives and one is failing now. At first WinXP BSODed and then after restart it happened withing a few minutes. When I started to check what was wrong it went dead and wouldn't even recognize the drive in bios. Next day I tried to boot the PC and it booted ok, i tried to check the SMART status of the drive (using smartctl) and it showed as if the drive was OK. Within a few minutes the OS went dead again.
I put the drive in the freezer (or tried to cool it down with liquid air from a gas duster can) and after that I was able to boot the OS and copy a few gigs of files before it wend BSOD again. The thing is that I use that PC work work and I have my setup with all stuff that I need and I did some work on that pc and I really would like to do something so that I would be able to use that same setup; in other words, I'd like to replace that failing drive with a new one and continue to use that raid-0 setup.
I have 2x500gb raid0, 1x500gb and 1x1000gb, I moved all data from that single 500gb drive and I would like to replace the failing drive with this one. I used intel matrix console (windows gui app) and from different places people mention that a failing raid-0 can be fixed by intel matrix console by marking a "spare" drive. I did just that. I made the single drive completely disappear from windows explorer and intel matrix storage manager shows it as a spare drive. But I have no clue what exactly that means! Matrix storage manager shows the failing drive as if it was OK, so how can I tell it to mirror it? Or is it making raid5 out of that failing drive under the cover?
SO, can anybody tell me what that mark as a spare drive means and if it's something that could help me?
PS. When copying data from the failing raid0 array I was able to copy large files fast, but copying folders with lots of small files is insanely slow. Transfer data rate drops significantly with small files (big wtf with windows), so if there was a way to simply copy the failing drive fast without using OS functions (something like image a drive), but that solution could probably only help we save data and not restore the array.
UPDATE: Intel matrix storage allows raid0 to raid5 conversion on the fly. Basically, from windows gui app you can tell it to use one extra drive to be added to the new raid5 array. So, I did just this. It started to create raid 5 array. After some time (around 20 minutes) progress was 1% and the system wen BSOD. So, I put the drive into freezer again, after it's cooled down I plug it back in, start the os and... here's the big WTF. Retarded matrix storage starts reconstructing the array. I have no clue, but I suspect that now this retarded matrix storage BS thinks that the array was raid5 and the newly added drive is the replacement. And it tried to rebuild it. Not sure what and how exactly it does, but I have suspicion that it could use that new drive (that was empty) and try to rebuild array with it's contents which obviously will destroy the data... I have no clue, at this point data isn't accessible at all and the array is in unknown state and even if it finishes rebuilding I'm not sure what the result of that stupidity of the controller could be. I suspect that it has flawed logic and if raid5 conversion isn't completed then after reboot it will do some bad ass stuff to corrupt the data. Anybody have nay ideas?
Pavel P
Posted 2012-08-01T05:38:27.587
Reputation: 1 558
A drive marked as 'spare' will only be used by a RAID setup capable of using a 'spare'. RAID 0 is not capable. You need to either convert the RAID 0 to 5 or clone the problem disk to a working one. Either way your data is very much at risk! You're better off using some kind of recovery tool/live CD to recover all the data to the 500GB drive (if big enough?) before attempting any kind of RAID repair. – HaydnWVN – 2012-08-01T08:06:16.093
I saved some stuff except that folders with thousands of small files aren't copyable because of insane windoze sluggishness. However, there is an update to the story. Check original post for extra info. – Pavel P – 2012-08-01T08:08:25.200
Using a livecd/recovery/drive copy tool will not require Windows so should avoid the multiple file problem. It might also be that the damaged area of disk is where these files are. I've used Ghost to recover damaged RAID arrays before. – HaydnWVN – 2012-08-01T08:14:07.613
i think that the drive itself is ok, seems like the outside circuitry malfunctions when drive gets warm. At this point because I tried to use just tools from intel I suspect that my data is lost forever... – Pavel P – 2012-08-01T08:16:53.240
Not necessarily - there may be options to repair the array which may repair the data. This kind of failure is usually the drive controller and not the hard drive platters (where your data is). If it were me i'd try and clone the problem disk to another (Ghost/Clonezilla/Trueimage), then rebuild the array with the original (working) disk and the replacement. – HaydnWVN – 2012-08-01T08:47:56.167