Raid Mirror Drive Failure

First, my appologies: I tried a HW group first with this question with no
response. I know some folks here are knowledable about Promise RAID. I
should have x-posted instead of multi-posting, but I thought I'd get an
answer in the other group.

Anyway...

I have a mirrored setup on a Promise RAID built-in controller. One disk went
bad. I removed it. The remaining disk continues to operate normally - for
now.

However, I get a "critical" warning from the RAID controller every time I
boot - but it does succeed without issues.

I would like to eliminate this warning and continue with only one disk.
Preferably in a single-disk non-RAID config. But, whatever.

How can I do that?

Do I have to rebuild from scratch?

What happens if I use [ctrl-F] to enter the RAID management and simply
"delete the array"? Will I be able to reconfigure to boot from that
remaining disk or will it require to be rebuilt completely as a single IDE?

Thanks,

-Frank

You need to get rid of the RAID array, back up the drive to an external
disk, disable the RAID, if the drive no longer boots restore from your
backup. On some controllers, deleting the array also deletes your data.

--

----
Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375



"Frankster" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> First, my appologies: I tried a HW group first with this question with no
> response. I know some folks here are knowledable about Promise RAID. I
> should have x-posted instead of multi-posting, but I thought I'd get an
> answer in the other group.
>
> Anyway...
>
> I have a mirrored setup on a Promise RAID built-in controller. One disk
> went
> bad. I removed it. The remaining disk continues to operate normally - for
> now.
>
> However, I get a "critical" warning from the RAID controller every time I
> boot - but it does succeed without issues.
>
> I would like to eliminate this warning and continue with only one disk.
> Preferably in a single-disk non-RAID config. But, whatever.
>
> How can I do that?
>
> Do I have to rebuild from scratch?
>
> What happens if I use [ctrl-F] to enter the RAID management and simply
> "delete the array"? Will I be able to reconfigure to boot from that
> remaining disk or will it require to be rebuilt completely as a single
> IDE?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Frank
>

Hi, Frank.

> However, I get a "critical" warning from the RAID controller every time I
> boot - but it does succeed without issues.

What is the actual wording of that message?

My first RAID has been running for about 18 months now. I built it on a
pair of new 300 GB Seagate SATA drives using the RAID built into my new EPoX
MF570sli motherboard; the NVIDIA nForce RAID Controller. (The mirror was
for my data; two other non-RAIDed drives hold OSes and apps.) After just a
couple of days, I started getting error messages every time I booted up!
They said my RAID was "degraded". Since I knew practically nothing about
RAID, I ran some tests and became convinced that one of my new Seagates was
bad. I took it back to Best Buy and the manager exchanged it for another
new one just like it. Sure enough, every boot still brought up the
"degraded" message.

But I doubted that I would get two bad Seagates in a row. So I just kept
running. In a couple of days, those messages went away and my RAID is still
running without a hiccup. ;<)

My theory (based on my incomplete understanding of how a RAID mirror works)
is that the "degraded" message appears when the two "mirror images" don't
match. But they naturally will not match when the mirror is first created!
Disk A will have your existing files, but Disk B will be empty. We can wait
while the system copies the whole 300 GB, in multiple partitions in my case,
from A to B to create the initial mirror. Or we can do what I did, which is
to tell the controller to build the mirror "on the fly" while I keep
working. During this initial phase, of course the images won't match, and
the system will complain legitimately. But within a few days, the
background copying will be caught up and there should be no more "degraded"
messages.

Several months ago, an unrelated problem required me to remove the second
mirrored drive for a few days. (My system continued to work perfectly with
only the one drive; all I was missing was the safety of redundancy.) When I
returned it to the array, I once again got the "degraded" message, but these
stopped after the system had time to adjust the mirror to reflect the
activity on the first drive during those days.

Could that be what is happening in your system?

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail 2008 in Vista Ultimate x64 SP1)

"Frankster" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> First, my appologies: I tried a HW group first with this question with no
> response. I know some folks here are knowledable about Promise RAID. I
> should have x-posted instead of multi-posting, but I thought I'd get an
> answer in the other group.
>
> Anyway...
>
> I have a mirrored setup on a Promise RAID built-in controller. One disk
> went
> bad. I removed it. The remaining disk continues to operate normally - for
> now.
>
> However, I get a "critical" warning from the RAID controller every time I
> boot - but it does succeed without issues.
>
> I would like to eliminate this warning and continue with only one disk.
> Preferably in a single-disk non-RAID config. But, whatever.
>
> How can I do that?
>
> Do I have to rebuild from scratch?
>
> What happens if I use [ctrl-F] to enter the RAID management and simply
> "delete the array"? Will I be able to reconfigure to boot from that
> remaining disk or will it require to be rebuilt completely as a single
> IDE?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Frank

In article <>,
says...
> First, my appologies: I tried a HW group first with this question with no
> response. I know some folks here are knowledable about Promise RAID. I
> should have x-posted instead of multi-posting, but I thought I'd get an
> answer in the other group.
>
> Anyway...
>
> I have a mirrored setup on a Promise RAID built-in controller. One disk went
> bad. I removed it. The remaining disk continues to operate normally - for
> now.
>
> However, I get a "critical" warning from the RAID controller every time I
> boot - but it does succeed without issues.
>
> I would like to eliminate this warning and continue with only one disk.
> Preferably in a single-disk non-RAID config. But, whatever.
>
> How can I do that?
>
> Do I have to rebuild from scratch?
>
> What happens if I use [ctrl-F] to enter the RAID management and simply
> "delete the array"? Will I be able to reconfigure to boot from that
> remaining disk or will it require to be rebuilt completely as a single IDE?

You answered your own question, at least the first one:

1) 1 drive in your array failed, you get a warning when you reboot -
that's how it's suppose to work, you're suppose to get a warning.

2) You can continue working because that's how RAID-1 works, you can
have either drive fail and the system will use the working drive.

3) If you have another failure you will have nothing, total loss, until
you get a new drive installed and added to the array to replace the
defunct drive.

4) Drives are cheap, just buy one and install it, you want RAID, it's a
good thing.

No telling on the delete array, it might delete the data, might not. A
good test is to remove the drive and install it on a NON-RAID port on
the motherboard, set the BIOS to boot from non-raid controller, see if
that works - this could cause a TOTAL LOSS OF DATA, but my experience is
that the Promise controllers don't do anything special that would limit
the drive from working on a non-promise controller.

Again, without RAID or with moving it to another controller, you could
experience a complete data loss.

--
- Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
- Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
(remove 999 for proper email address)

"Frankster" <> wrote in message
news: ...
> First, my appologies: I tried a HW group first with this question with no
> response. I know some folks here are knowledable about Promise RAID. I
> should have x-posted instead of multi-posting, but I thought I'd get an
> answer in the other group.
>
> Anyway...
>
> I have a mirrored setup on a Promise RAID built-in controller. One disk
> went
> bad. I removed it. The remaining disk continues to operate normally - for
> now.
>
> However, I get a "critical" warning from the RAID controller every time I
> boot - but it does succeed without issues.
>
> I would like to eliminate this warning and continue with only one disk.
> Preferably in a single-disk non-RAID config. But, whatever.
>
> How can I do that?
>
> Do I have to rebuild from scratch?
>
> What happens if I use [ctrl-F] to enter the RAID management and simply
> "delete the array"? Will I be able to reconfigure to boot from that
> remaining disk or will it require to be rebuilt completely as a single
> IDE?
>
> Thanks,
>
> -Frank
>

Thanks to all for the replies!

First thing I did was to have the person it belonged to buy an external
drive to copy her music over to it so the music could be deleted from the
boot drive. Did a complete backup while I was at it. It was 122GB primary
drive with less than 1 GB free space. Not enough space to even do
maintenance on. Chkdsk would not run, I presume because there was not enough
space left, and defrag would not run for the same reason. The disk was
around 80 percent fragmented and 99 percnet full - bad.

There was no a consensus here that it would still boot if I deleted the
array, so I didn't. I didn't want to be responsible for fixing it if it
didn't boot after deleting the Array. Yes, I know how, but I don't have the
time for it and she couldn't afford it anyway. So I just left it as-is, with
the boot up error message due to the missing drive in the array. I continues
to work fine. I told the girl that owns it that it's time to upgrade to a
new box anyway. This one is pretty dated and really not worth putting more
money into it at today's low prices for new stuff.

Note: After freeing up disk space, chkdsk /f worked fine to clean up the
errors (many) and defrag did fine too.

As for why not just plunk a new drive it... the drive would have to be an
exact match for the existing drive. I couldn't find one easily. Also, under
the circumstances, I would have recommended a two-drive replacement and
rebuild. All in all, not worth it for this machine. (I would have charged
her much more than the drive cost to do it anyway). An external drive
allowed a quick full backup for all data and can now easily be transported
to a new system when purchased.

Again, thanks for the input.

-Frank

Actually it doesn't have to be an exact match, that is always preferred, but
you can use a drive from a different mfg, and you can even use a larger
drive, you'll just lose the additional space.

--

----
Crosspost, do not multipost http://www.blakjak.demon.co.uk/mul_crss.htm
How to ask a question http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375



"Frankster" <> wrote in message
news: ...
>
> As for why not just plunk a new drive it... the drive would have to be an
> exact match for the existing drive. I couldn't find one easily. Also,
> under the circumstances, I would have recommended a two-drive replacement
> and rebuild. All in all, not worth it for this machine. (I would have
> charged her much more than the drive cost to do it anyway). An external
> drive allowed a quick full backup for all data and can now easily be
> transported to a new system when purchased.
>
> Again, thanks for the input.
>
> -Frank

In article <>,
says...
> As for why not just plunk a new drive it... the drive would have to be an
> exact match for the existing drive. I couldn't find one easily.

Not true at all, the replacement drive would only have to be the same
size OR LARGER for this to work. You could have an old working 80GB
drive ARRAY and use a 300GB drive to replace the defective drive in the
array.

--
- Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
- Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"
(remove 999 for proper email address)

"Leythos" <> wrote in message
news:. ..
> In article <>,
> says...
>> As for why not just plunk a new drive it... the drive would have to be an
>> exact match for the existing drive. I couldn't find one easily.
>
> Not true at all, the replacement drive would only have to be the same
> size OR LARGER for this to work. You could have an old working 80GB
> drive ARRAY and use a 300GB drive to replace the defective drive in the
> array.
>
> --
> - Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.
> - Calling an illegal alien an "undocumented worker" is like calling a
> drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist"

Gotcha. True. kind of a waste though.

-Frank