Crazy RAID situation

captainbdsccaptainbdsc
edited July 2009 in Hardware
Before reading realize that I am using a EVGA 780sli MoBO

Hello,

I am having problems with my RAID configuration (or the lack thereof). Here is the story:

I was playing a game when my video card seemed to crash. The screen went dead and so forth. I restarted the computer and there was no picture. So, I opened up my computer and took out my video card dusted it and put it back and gave it a different power lead from the supply. Bingo! I have a picture.

BUT, as I boot I get the message that my RAID1 configuration is degraded. Windows boots fine. I do some research on the internet and find out that I can rebuild it. BUT there is no such option on my particular installation of nVida control. Then I reboot to see if I actually have both hard drives. I discover that I do not. I open up the computer again and see that in the process of “messing” with my video card I must have unplugged one of the hard drives. So I plug it back in and attempt to rebuild before windows starts. I can’t do anything. I push the button for rebuild and it just drops back to the main screen, which I have found on the internet to be a common problem and that system for rebuilding is only if you have actual drive failure.

Obviously the two drives are now completely out of sync. There is about 1GB more on one than the other. At this point I am thinking well, I need to unplug the one that came unplugged and fix it later by formatting it and rebuilding the array. So I unplug it and now windows wont start. It comes up to the main screen where the logins are found, but they never appear. It sits there with a blue screen and windows logo but no logins. I left it there for an hour one time and nothing happened. So I try plugging in the “bad” drive and windows starts fine, or so I think. Then I get this Generic Host Win32 Services error.

I do some looking at my drives and discover that there is not one hard drive, but there are two! C: and F: both showing up both having a complete system installed on them except for about a Gig’s worth of files not to mention some programs being installed on one and some on the other, due to trying to figure out what was going on. So this brings me to where I am at.

It appears that unless I have both drives plugged in windows wont start. My booting drive is F: and there are programs installed on C: instead of F: (which is the one that didn’t get unplugged). I think windows is booting from F:, (but I am not sure,) since when I open windows explorer it defaults to the F:blah blah blah/myDocuments etc. So, now I am not sure what to do. I don’t even have the option of deleting or rebuilding an array on my nVida Control panel. Besides that, how is windows looking at things? Is it looking at the registry on my C: instead of F:? Could I copy the entire C: (which is the one that got unplugged) and tell it to only copy the differences? (There are differences on each now. Because I used the computer, uninstalling and installing things while the “bad” drive was unplugged, and differences one the bad drive because “new” programs where installed to the C: instead of F:.) I am not sure how to proceed without screwing everything up and having to reinstall windows. I am hesitant to do so because I have a few CAD programs that have licensing issues with multiple installs and so forth. Please Help!

Thanks,

Brent

Comments

  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited July 2009
    At boot, go into the NVidia RAID config and make sure that both your drives are added to the array and that it is configured exactly the same as when you first set it up. Save the config and reboot. Even though the array will show as degraded you should still be able to boot from the sounds of it. Once in Windows, update your NVidia NForce drivers to the latest version from the NVidia website. After you do this you'll have to reboot. There should be a RAID utility in the Nvidia control Panel that will allow you to rebuild the array from inside Windows. I know there is on my NForce RAID5 setup... of course my mobo is a 570sli. If you launch the Nvidia control panel and make sure you're in advanced mode, you should have a Storage subsection. There should be an option there to Rebuild Array.

    Ex.
    NVRaid.JPG
  • captainbdsccaptainbdsc
    edited July 2009
    ardichoke wrote:
    At boot, go into the NVidia RAID config and make sure that both your drives are added to the array and that it is configured exactly the same as when you first set it up. Save the config and reboot. Even though the array will show as degraded you should still be able to boot from the sounds of it. Once in Windows, update your NVidia NForce drivers to the latest version from the NVidia website. After you do this you'll have to reboot. There should be a RAID utility in the Nvidia control Panel that will allow you to rebuild the array from inside Windows. I know there is on my NForce RAID5 setup... of course my mobo is a 570sli. If you launch the Nvidia control panel and make sure you're in advanced mode, you should have a Storage subsection. There should be an option there to Rebuild Array.

    Ex.
    NVRaid.JPG

    Thanks for responding! :)

    So does that include deleting the current RAID configuration? Then setting it up again? Delete MBR?

    Thanks,
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited July 2009
    Do not delete your MBR. That will make your drives non-bootable. You shouldn't have to delete the current RAID config, just make absolutely sure it's still set up the way you originally had it. I.E. - both disks are added to it, it's set to the same RAID level, etc.
  • captainbdsccaptainbdsc
    edited July 2009
    ardichoke wrote:
    Do not delete your MBR. That will make your drives non-bootable. You shouldn't have to delete the current RAID config, just make absolutely sure it's still set up the way you originally had it. I.E. - both disks are added to it, it's set to the same RAID level, etc.

    Oh man... i couldn't change anything since it was still the same as it originally was... So I deleted the array and didn't delete the MBR... Windows wouldn't boot. So I tried using my windows disk to repair windows... That wouldn't load either... So I deleted the MBR... This time my machine would boot from the disk... I tried to do the automated system recovery but it wouldn't do anything without a diskette... I suppose I am completely out of luck... So depressed... I guess I am left with reinstalling windows... Crap... :(
  • ardichokeardichoke Icrontian
    edited July 2009
    Not necessarily.... Remake your RAID array the way you had it. Boot your XP disk and when it prompts you go to Recovery console. From there run fixmbr which may fix your issues.
  • captainbdsccaptainbdsc
    edited July 2009
    ardichoke wrote:
    Not necessarily.... Remake your RAID array the way you had it. Boot your XP disk and when it prompts you go to Recovery console. From there run fixmbr which may fix your issues.

    Oh. Well it was asking for a floppy diskette which I don't have... I have already started formatting...
    I really appreciate your help! Thank you :)
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