View Full Version : Help! Raid Issues!
Barth Gimble
08-06-2006, 04:37 PM
I've lost a disc in one of my RAIDS. Not sure what my next move should be. Can ANYONE HEP ME?
What kind of raid do you have?
THoff
08-06-2006, 06:05 PM
If it's RAID0, you better have a backup. If it's a higher form of RAID, install a replacement drive and let the array rebuild.
RAID0 is a bad idea for most uses because it actually increases the likelyhood of data loss -- you now depend on twice as many devices not failing, and if either does, you are out of business.
Barth Gimble
08-06-2006, 06:39 PM
....I KNEW you guys were gonna ask me that.....DAMN!....well....I'm pretty good with my software....but computer tech is NOT my forte.....So, I'll do my best to describe this set up. I have a Power G5 Dual 2 running OX 10.4.7. I have two Promax SATA arrays...each with 4 x 250GB drives. Array 1 is the problem. When in Disk Utility I see what I believe is the offending drive in the left column....but it's greyed. It won't mount when I try. The other 3 drives are there as well....and when I click one of them.... all 3 appear in the right hand window...but it says they're off line.... Now, I'd like to recover all the stuff on those drives, if possible....and I'm willing to work for it.....I've got room on the other array to offload if it's possible. What do you guys think?
Still need to know what your set-up is... what is the size of the RAID drive normally? If it is 1TB, then you are in some trouble as you have a RAID0. If you have a RAID5 you can rebuild the missing drive by replacing it. If you determine you have a RAID0 you will need to send your drive to a data recovery specialist. Havent done it in a while but I suspect someone reputable will be well over $1000....
ash =o)
Barth Gimble
08-07-2006, 11:55 AM
Still need to know what your set-up is... what is the size of the RAID drive normally? If it is 1TB, then you are in some trouble as you have a RAID0. If you have a RAID5 you can rebuild the missing drive by replacing it. If you determine you have a RAID0 you will need to send your drive to a data recovery specialist. Havent done it in a while but I suspect someone reputable will be well over $1000....
ash =o)
....yes...it's a 1TB RAID....but I dunno what the difference between a RAID0 or a RAID136 is........so.......You're telling me ALL the data on the RAID is gone? There's NO way I could mount the good drives individually in some single housing and yank all the stuff onto my other 1TB RAID?
THoff
08-07-2006, 12:19 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
If you have a RAID0 array, then the data is spread across multiple drives. This increases disk throughput in a near-linear fashion as the number of drives increases, without any disk capacity loss due to making redundant copies of the data on more than one drive.
The downside is that the failure of any one drive will cause all the data to become unavailable. RAID0 should only be used for scratch drives, never to keep the only copy of your assets.
nycfilmmaker
08-07-2006, 12:31 PM
does it say in disk utility STRIPED? if so, than it's a raid 0
Barth Gimble
08-07-2006, 12:47 PM
does it say in disk utility STRIPED? if so, than it's a raid 0
...here's my disk utility window
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/Wilcobrim/raid.jpg
Barth Gimble
08-07-2006, 05:54 PM
If you determine you have a RAID0 you will need to send your drive to a data recovery specialist. Havent done it in a while but I suspect someone reputable will be well over $1000....
ash =o)
....here' my question then,....if it CAN be done by SOMEONE....what is it that they're doing....and WHY CAN'T I DO IT MYSELF?
Barth, give Disk Warrior software a try. It has been good to me when drives didn't mount. Its around $75.
Barth Gimble
08-07-2006, 06:24 PM
....I have Disk Warrior...and Tech Tools....neither seemed to help. I'm currently snooping around the net for some sort of salvage software. Maybe it's the "babe in the woods" in me,...but I refuse to believe I can't do this myself. In the future I'll protect myself, right now...I'm not giving up.....thanks for the suggestions mico.
Yeah I've taken the same approach. If the hard drive is not making a noisy broken sound I will do everything to bring the drive back and fortunately have had good luck doing so.
Just a couple more suggestions. I would boot off the OS cd and repair permissions on the computer and try disk warrior again. If that didn't work I would take all the drives out of the raid except the one thats not mounting ( could be a power supply issue) and try again to mount the drive using Disk warrior and Tech tools and switch SATA cables out to see if the cables are the culprit.If that doesn't work I would also put the drive thats not mounting alone in the array that mounted all the drives to see if its the Promax hardware. Time consuming but might get you closer to a solution.
I also read that promax uses port multiplcation for some of thier arrays so it might be an array hardware issue and transfering the drives to the array that is mounting all four drives might be an option.
Just to be safe I would make sure to mark the hard drive placement in the arrays so you put them back in the same order if you decide to do this.
Barth Gimble
08-07-2006, 07:35 PM
Yeah I've taken the same approach. If the hard drive is not making a noisy broken sound I will do everything to bring the drive back and fortunately have had good luck doing so.
....not making any noise, so I think that's good. I DID get one of those "You didn't unmount your disc properly" (or whatever) messages the other day...kinda surprised me because I hadn't unmounted any discs...:)... thought it was my iPod er sumthin.
Just a couple more suggestions. I would boot off the OS cd and repair permissions on the computer and try disk warrior again.
....haven't done that yet....will try that as soon as I finish backing up my other RAID....see folks...IAM learning...:)
If that didn't work I would take all the drives out of the raid except the one thats not mounting ( could be a power supply issue) and try again to mount the drive using Disk warrior and Tech tools
....haven't tried THAT....but I did try switching the drives into the good RAID and got the same thing.
If that doesn't work I would also put the drive thats not mounting alone in the array that mounted all the drives to see if its the Promax hardware.
....and I haven't done that either...but the bad drive is marked....and when switching out drives, I always keep track of wich bay they came from.
....there's just gotta be a way to salvage at least SOME of the stuff from the good drives....I could live with that.
...thanks mico
Alexa
08-07-2006, 08:24 PM
If you determine you have a RAID0 you will need to send your drive to a data recovery specialist. Havent done it in a while but I suspect someone reputable will be well over $1000....
....here' my question then,....if it CAN be done by SOMEONE....what is it that they're doing....and WHY CAN'T I DO IT MYSELF?
Don’t be so hard on yourself. They take apart the drive and do some major work that is done in labs, etc.
I hope it works out for you. I’ve been there before. Drivesavers would have cost me, I think it was $1500 or $2k. I passed. It is a sad, sad, demoralizing thing to lose so much data. I agree, the fact that the drive wasn’t making noise is a great sign. The sound on one of mine was horrible, just horrible. Let us know how it goes. Everyone else took my suggestions.
Blaine
08-07-2006, 08:35 PM
I had to send a drive to DriveSavers. $4400. It would have only been $2500 but the drive was in a raid configuration so of course it was more. They charge you based on the percent of data the recover. They recovered 100% of mine. It was a lesson well learned (the hard way) about having proper back up. Basically, they restripe the data from the corrupted disc to a clean one.
You RAID info is confusing... do you have 2 seperate 1TB raids in a mirror? If that is one big RAID then you will need data recover specialists, you cannot do it yourself...
ash =o)
Barth Gimble
08-07-2006, 09:37 PM
....two seperate towers....each tower has 4 x 250 drives. I'm trying something here....might be a bit of time before I know if it works....but I'll pass on the info if/when it does/doesn't work....thank you all. I'm determined.......:kali:
nycfilmmaker
08-08-2006, 08:51 AM
The screen still you put up is for setting up the raid. go to the left of disk utility and click on 931.5 GB icon then show us what you get
try shutting down your computer removing the drives and putting them back in.
erdiaz
08-10-2006, 09:20 AM
I don't know if it helps, but I wonder if you can mount your raid on a PC and run this:
http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm (raid reconstrution tool, for PC)
I have solve a big problem few months ago, but I'm a PC user, I dont know abut Mac.
Good Luck!!!
THoff
08-10-2006, 09:55 AM
No! Bad idea! One RAID implementation is not compatible with another! You can't even move a RAID volume from one vendor's controller / software RAID implementation to another vendor's implementation!
Barth Gimble
08-10-2006, 01:05 PM
....thanks for all the suggestions guys....I'm out of town right now, so I'm letting the RAID situation disappear from my concerns for the week.
erdiaz
08-11-2006, 07:39 AM
No! Bad idea! One RAID implementation is not compatible with another! You can't even move a RAID volume from one vendor's controller / software RAID implementation to another vendor's implementation!
May be I was Lucky but I did, I Move my malfunctioning raid from one PC to another and Works!
Further more I have a PCMCIA Sata card raid 0 with 2 external sata disks, and I move the array from my desktop station to my laptop, no problem. ( I only have to take care in the cables order, I found it by try and error) see it here: http://www.firewiredirect.com/product/343/ I insist, I'm a PC user, I don't know about Mac
But again, may be I'm lucky :)
Barth Gimble
08-18-2006, 08:27 PM
The screen still you put up is for setting up the raid. go to the left of disk utility and click on 931.5 GB icon then show us what you get
try shutting down your computer removing the drives and putting them back in.
....here's what I got with the screen grab....
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v225/Wilcobrim/raid2.jpg
Can Scanner
08-19-2006, 12:03 AM
If it's a mirrored setup, wouldn't he be able to rebuild easily? He's got 8 drives- 4 in one case and 4 in another, and only one drive died.
Right?
Shouldn't he still be able to access the data without problems too?
Shouldn't he just replace the dead drive with an identical replacement and rebuild the array?
THoff
08-19-2006, 10:29 AM
Yes, that's been suggested already.
I'm not a Mac guy and don't know anything about the RAID utility we're looking at, but I see conflicting information. Near the center of the window it says "Mirrored RAID Set" and in the bottom left it says "Striped RAID Set" -- striped means RAID0, so there is no rebuilding possible.
Barth Gimble
08-19-2006, 02:36 PM
Yes, that's been suggested already.
I'm not a Mac guy and don't know anything about the RAID utility we're looking at, but I see conflicting information. Near the center of the window it says "Mirrored RAID Set" and in the bottom left it says "Striped RAID Set" -- striped means RAID0, so there is no rebuilding possible.
.....yeah.....I'm to the point where I'm just gonna buy another disc...and re-do the damn things. I'm not gonna lose too much...