Hard Drive Failure

[Joe Hanna]

Ok, I need some advice or knowledge on this one. I just had a hard drive failure in the middle of my project which has been ongoing for the last three months. I film a local high school football team and and gather the 10 or so best clips each week and build a highlight film for the end of season dinner.

Here is my problem, I tried to acess my program and the computer will not start, it just keeps recycling during start up. I did dianostic and recieved a hard drive error. Call my tech support and they said my HD is dead they are sending an replacement free of charge.

My question is I have two HD's 500gb in raid 0 and 1. One drive as I understand is Mirrored (not a techie here.)

So when I nstall this new HD will I be able to acess my files? Will I need to reinstall windows? will the second HD update this new one?

The best that I can tell these two drive's worked together because each drive use showed the same amout of space used. How does this work and will I be ok or is my work lost.

I guess I'm looking for reasurance while I'm waiting for the new HD.

Any advice or view's, or a pat on the back saying It'll be OK, don't panick Joe will be greatly appreciated

[Allen Plowman]

Two hard drives can be in either raid 1, or raid 2 but not both. if they are mirrored, then yes your information is safe. if it is a raid 0 for speed, you lose all the information on both drives

[Joe Hanna]

Yes Mirrored, always get a message stating that your data is being backed up during startup. Do you know what will happen when I install the new HD?

[Chris Soucy]

If your two hard drives were mirrored, you would still be able to access the good one even with the other cactus, unless the failed one was dragging down the PSU or similar.

The fact that the PC will not start is not encourageing, tho' not necessarilly terminal.

I suggest you disconnect the dead drive from the PSU/ disk controller and try again.

If it still won't come up it's either not a HDD problem OR the drives are not mirrored and you've just lost your C drive (tho' not necessarilly your D drive) OR both drives were one striped volume in which case you're stuffed good and proper.

Cheered you up?


CS

[Tripp Woelfel]

Chris is right... which is typical of him. (grin) If there's still a question of whether your dead drive was mirrored (RAID 1) or striped (RAID 0), from what you've said it sounds like it was mirrored.

As to the startup problem, what is probably happening is that the mirroring software operates "beneath" the operating system and when it encounters the dead drive it throws up its hands and doesn't know what to do and goes no further. Since you haven't described what's used for the mirroring, it's hard to come up with better descriptions. Replacing the dead drive should solve the problem.

As to what happens once there's a new drive in the mix, it's hard to know for sure since we don't know what's doing the mirroring. However, any RAID software/hardware worth anything at all will automagically rebuild the data on the new disk. Once that's done, things should be just as they were before the failure.

[Joe Hanna]

Thanks everyone, I should be recieving the new drive today sometime. I'll plug it in and see what happens and report back, got my fingers crossed here.

[Chris Soucy]

It occured to me that as part of the boot routine (on my machine), both my Silicon Graphics and Nvidia Raid controllers software give you a F10 (I think) HALT to do Raid maintenance and re - configureing PRIOR to attempting to load the OS.

(Yet another of those many things you see every day without actually taking on board).

It may be that you're not seeing this happen for some reason and the system is sailing merrily on till it attempts to load the OS and consequently falls in a heap.

I cannot envisage any Raid controller not doing this, so would suggest you re - boot the pc and watch closely. It may take a couple of stabs at it as it doesn't give you a shed load of reaction time.

You may not be able to make head nor tail of what/ how the software "does it's thing" but at least you'll know just what the Raid controller(s) THINK your system should look like.

You'll have to master this software at some point to re - build the array, assuming you do have a mirrored 2 drive logical volume, an issue yet to be proved one way or another.


Good luck.


CS

[Giroud Francois]

well, i would say the first thing is to stop doing anything and get some professional involved.
I mean you really want to get your data back (if possible), the plan is not to fiddle with the toy until it is really brokena and then ask for help, but get serious rescue when it is still not too late.
raid can be very finnicky and choosing the wrong option in a menu can drives you right in the wall in an eyeblink.
unless you provide a real information (motherboard name and model, os version, disk type, type of raid ) i doubt any advise would help you.
But , as professional in IT, i can ensure you that it is very hard to loose data when everything is done properly.

[Joe Hanna]

Thanks for the in put. I have recieved the new HD and just removed the old, pluged in the new and started the computer everything seems to be going well I have done noting on my part at this time. I am recieving a message in my tool bar that reads a RAID volume is being rebuilt Data redundency is being restored so I'm letting it run, about 35 min so far I'll report back later.

Thanks everyone
JH

[Joe Hanna]

happy happy joy joy happy happy joy. I'm back in the the game boys all data saved machine is running good, project safe, computer fixed itself. Just pluged in new drive and let the recovery program do its thing.

At first it seemed that I needed to rebuild drive by clicking on the recovery program and select options to rebuild drive but got error message stating that not enough space was availble but after a reboot it did it on its own.

Thanks to all who gave input. advice, and encouragement, (C.S.) and I'll say it again I love this network. I hope this helps others who viewed this post now and in the future

JH

[Chris Soucy]

Great to hear.

Gotta be one of the happiest endings to a "my HDD died" story I've ever heard/ read.

Would that they all turned out that way.

Just as a point of interest, can you impart any info on the full drive(s)/ volumes specs and Raid controllers/ software used?

I still don't have a clear picture about how your machine was configured so I'm finding it impossible to relate it to how mine is set up.

Just hope to God, if my mirrored "C" drive (2 X 250Gig) ever pops it's clogs, the fix is so simple.


CS

[Joe Hanna]

Chris this is the best that I can offer in an explanation on what I have. The computer is new (6mo) I've not found my way around yet on all the paticulars nor do I understand it fully

Intel Matrix Storage Console/ SATA Raid controller
Arrays_0000
Raid HD = PORT 0 WDC 500GB
PORT 1 WDC 500GB

Raid Id 0
Name Array
Level= Raid 1 Mirror

Thats pretty much the info on the flash screen during start up, hope this helps. If you need more or this dosent make sense I'll try to get more for you.

Thanks again
JH

[Tripp Woelfel]

That's the Intel mobo RAID. A lot of the newer machines have them as a native component.

Never tried it on mine.