Lost my RAID??

descendents8085descendents8085
edited October 2006 in Hardware
Sorry this is a long post but I have been trying to fix this probelm for weeks and have been repeatedly thwarted. My original computer setup is a Shuttle AN50R Motherboard, A64 3000+, and 2 SATA Seagate harddrives in a Raid 0 array. About two or three weeks ago I was trying to plug a USB cable into the back of the computer when it suddenly turned off. No big deal, maybe something got bumped and shut off. I repeatedly tried to turn it back on and would get motherboard lights and the whirring of fans but no POST beep or VGA display. I swapped graphics cards and power supplies and still the motherboard wouldn't POST. I figured my motherboard had died on me so I bought a K8VXSE replacement motherboard. I got home, unpacked the motherboard, plugged in my drives, and booted it up. The VIA SATA raid driver on the card was recognizing my two drives, but not the Raid array they were in. Ok, I guess It looks like I am going to need a raid controller made by Silicon Images like my last one, so off to Newegg I go. A few days later I have my new PCI SATA raid controller, I plug it in, boot up the computer, and lo and behold not only does it recognize my drives but also the Raid 0 Striping array that they are in. I go into the bios, select the striped array as my boot device, save, and restart the computer. Upon booting I am getting Boot Media Failures. I attribute this to Newegg sending me a card with the Sil3512 controller rather than the Sil3112 controller on my old motherboard. However, this thought is denied when checking the Silicon Images website where it says users of 3112 can easily migrate to 3512. Not wanting to deal with this any longer I return the VIA board and scour the internet to find my same old motherboard. After finally finding a place that had one left in stock I immediatly order it and began waiting for it's arrival. Now here I sit with an identical motherboard as my old one and my two raid drives. After plugging in all the neccesary components, I enter the BIOS and select SCSI as my primary boot device. As the computer boots I see my raid controller is again showing both of my drives in a striped Raid array. After the memory test I get the same message "Book Media Failure, Insert system disk and press enter to try again." I also was getting a PXE-61 error but disabled the onboard LAN in the BIOS and that went away.

So basically what I'm wondering is what my next step should be. I would really like to be able to recover the data that is on those two drives. Is there anything anyone would suggest to get these drives bootable? I have thought I could boot to a bootable linux cd or possibly install Windows on an IDE drive and see if I can access the drives in windows. Does it sound like these drives are just dead? If there are any diagnostics I should run or if you have any suggestions at all please let me know as it would be be really appreciated.

Sorry for the long post and thanks for the help in advance,
Kelly

Comments

  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    I have been trying everything I can on this computer today. Just tried the WINXP boot cd and also ERD commander. While they were loading I installed the SATA raid drivers off of a floppy but it still is not showing a windows install or the drives data on ERD Commander and doing an XP restore had an error before picking what OS I wanted to reinstall.

    Does this mean my data is lost? If so, why would my hdds go the same time as my motherboard?

    Kelly
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    I was also wondering if it could possibly be a bad cable causing these problems. It is showing both drives and even the striped set so I think the both cables are fine though.
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    I also just used the seagate utility that comes with the harddrives and both drives checked out fine. I tried deleting and rebuilding the array (set) also.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    See if TestDisk can locate and repair any partitions on the array. :)
  • KwitkoKwitko Sheriff of Banning (Retired) By the thing near the stuff Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    Ah, TestDisk. It's prof's cureall for what ails ya. And it's not snake oil. TestDisk really works, or prof will have hell to pay.
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    Is there a version of testdisk that is bootable from a cd? Or do I have to boot to an ide and then run it?
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    descendents8085 wrote:
    Is there a version of testdisk that is bootable from a cd? Or do I have to boot to an ide and then run it?
    Yes. For one, it is available as one of the File System utilities on the Ultimate Boot CD. That's a pretty hefty download, but has scores of useful tools.

    Or, you can just burn the program to a bootable CD and go from there. Floppy is probably the simplest, if you have a FDD in your system.
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    I actually already have UBCD somewhere so I will give that a try. Is it pretty self explanatory to use? It will read sata? Do I have to have my RAID drivers on a floppy too?

    Thanks for the help,
    Kelly
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    I popped in UBCD and went to test disk and everything loaded fine. Then I went to analyze/find partitions and it showed my array (320 gb drive). It did not find any partitions right away and I can analyze it and it will look on the whole harddrive. What I am wondering is if I should delete my array first or if I should run the analysis on the raid array I have now rather than on each seperate drive. Also since it didn't find anything immediatly should I try deleteing and recreating my raid array in the opposite order (instead of drive 0 then 1, try 1 then 0)

    Thanks,
    Kelly
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    Leave the array intact and have it do a deep scan.
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    The full scan just finished, nothing came up, it said that the structure is ok and the options are to add a partion, load a backup (none found), or continue.. Should I just continue? add a partion? delete my array and recreate it in the opposite order then analyze again?

    Thanks for the help,
    Kelly
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    You've changed RAID controllers when you changed motherboards.

    Each RAID is tied to a specific RAID controller as far as brand, type, and sometimes RAID bios.

    You will never get the new motherboard to see the array or the data written by the old one.

    Worst thing is if you created and array on the new controller itr has wiped the array info from the old controller and your data is basically gone unless you can rewrite the RAID table with an identical controller as your old one and not clear it. All block and stripe sizes must be identical also.

    The big disadvantage of RAID. They are almost customized to each array, but a controller of the same brand "should" be able to read an array from another in the same line, but not always.
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    The motherboard is the same as the motherboard the array was set up on. Also I set up the array on the motherboard immediatly when I got it originaly so they should both have the same motherboard bios version. That means that I am creating an array with anidentical controller and identical stripe size. If I am deleting and recreating the array it should be just like replacing it with a 'same as original' array I believe. Any ideas why TestDisk didnt find anything?
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    If that's the case I would look at the order the drives are being selected. I know that seems like a given, but most controllers don't care if drive 0 is first or drive 1 is first etc....

    I have had issues with that on several RAID controllers in the past while "playing". When you first select drives it shows 0 then 1, remove 0 and then re-add it and it now shows 1 then 0.

    Drive selection order can cause what your seeing. Worth a look.
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited October 2006
    Missileman wrote:
    ...Drive selection order can cause what your seeing. Worth a look.
    I concur. :)
  • descendents8085descendents8085
    edited October 2006
    The first boot device is set to scsi
  • MissilemanMissileman Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    I'm not talking about boot order :)

    I'm talking about the order you pick the member drives for the array when you select which drives to include in the RAID.

    If you select one drive first and it doesn't work. Go back and recreate the array picking the other drive first.
  • EnverexEnverex Worcester, UK Icrontian
    edited October 2006
    First thing I thought of when I saw this post was "Well, where do you last remember having it?" :p

    Under the section in the BIOS there should be somewhere where you can specifically change what drives come first (although not all BIOS' allow you to do that and only list it as "Hard Drives" rather than the individual drives).
Sign In or Register to comment.