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Recover RAID 5 Array

2193 Views 6 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  eflyguy, 
A
Hi,

I am trying to follow Ictinike's guide on Recovering Intel RAID "Non-Member Disk" Error found here,

Ictinike's RAID recovery Guide

I have recreated my RAID array as per the instructions.

However my RAID array status is then automatically set to: INITIALIZE

When I boot back into my Windows XP desktop, the Intel Matrix Storage Utility
begins to "Initialize" my drives.

This is a long slow process that will take about 20 hours. I suspect all my data will be lost.

I have gone back into my bios and disabled my RAID controller to prevent any further initialization and data loss. I have read that initialization will cause data loss. I've also read somewhere that it won't. I am not so confident in the latter.

Is there anyway to stop this initialization process so I can continue to follow the steps in the recovery guide?

I am in deep trouble now, I can feel it... I need the help of some experts.


Some system specs:
ABIT IP35 Pro Motherboard
ICH9R on board RAID controller
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C
Afraid,

Welcome to OCN, You seem to have a pretty serious issue here, unfortunately the thread that you read is related to a RAID0 Array, which is different to a RAID5 array, Raid0 is purely for performance, it has no parity. RAID5 has parity which means if a disk fails it can rebuild it from the other 2 disks. How many disk do you have in your raid5 array, I'll assume its 3 disk without a hotspare.

What did you do prior to the issue, did you update or reinstall windows or was it a hardware failure?

Thanks

Comps
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A
I have 5 disks apart of the RAID 5 array.

I have an independent disk running my OS. (Windows XP Pro)

What happened was, I thought my motherboard died (Abit IP35 Pro) because my system continued to power ON the OFF immediately.

Turns out with was the CPU instead and not the motherboard.

So after taking the CMOS battery out, the motherboard out, the CPU out and finally replacing it with a working CPU, somewhere along the lines my RAID setup did not like it and returned to me TWO non-member disks out of FIVE.

Some people over at this Intel Forum thread found here,

http://communities.intel.com/thread/...art=0&tstart=0

...seem to have followed these steps on a RAID 5 array.

One guy said:

Quote:
The solution you posted also saved my raid 5 array.

I lost 2 drives out of a 4 disk set after the CMOS was reset on my abit IP 35 Pro after installing new memory.
He also has the same board as I.

I just thought the this process wouldn't auto initialize the array or at least there would be someway to stop it so I can run through the TestDisk steps.

Thanks for your reply...
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C
Hmmmm

You can use a program called RAID Wizard, you can get it from

http://www.diskinternals.com/raid-recovery/

I think this should help you recover your raid5 array. I've used it at work on SCSI array's and its worked fine. There was another one call p suite or something but I can't find it :-(

you could consider (after you've got the data) is putting in a dedicated raid controller that doesn't run off your Bios battery... Since that seems to be where the main issue is. PLUS you can pull out your entire raid array with the controller card and put it in another machine with minimal fuss. Either that or run a 0+1 array which will be more redundant than your current raid5 array set up.

hope this helps

Comps
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2
Quote:

Originally Posted by afraid View Post
Hi,

I am trying to follow Ictinike's guide on Recovering Intel RAID "Non-Member Disk" Error found here,

Ictinike's RAID recovery Guide

I have recreated my RAID array as per the instructions.

However my RAID array status is then automatically set to: INITIALIZE

When I boot back into my Windows XP desktop, the Intel Matrix Storage Utility
begins to "Initialize" my drives.

This is a long slow process that will take about 20 hours. I suspect all my data will be lost.

I have gone back into my bios and disabled my RAID controller to prevent any further initialization and data loss. I have read that initialization will cause data loss. I've also read somewhere that it won't. I am not so confident in the latter.

Is there anyway to stop this initialization process so I can continue to follow the steps in the recovery guide?

I am in deep trouble now, I can feel it... I need the help of some experts.


Some system specs:
ABIT IP35 Pro Motherboard
ICH9R on board RAID controller

Hey Afraid!

I just read your post. I have the exact same problem.
I have to run testdrive in vista safe mode, because otherwise intel matrix utility tries to initialize my array... (I'm not sure how bad initializing would be for my data)

I am able to see my partition and files in testdrive and I could save them to an other drive (if I had a 3To drive somewhere, but no...)

I can't get my raid 5 not to be in initialize mode and testdrive to correctly reset the table partition...

I'm stuck here. Anyone have an idea???
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C
I'm in the same boat, did any of you guys have any success recovering your data?
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eflyguy
Suggest you read the Intel Matrix documentation on their site, particularly the parts about array recovery.
..a
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