I need to re-install Raid0+1 on exact same hardware/PC without data loss after BIOS and OS update

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Geekwon

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Sep 7, 2015
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Hello All,

To make a long story short as to why I am asking the question upgrading from Windows-10 1511 to 1607 hosed my machine so bad, I could not recover the disk partitions no matter what I tried. I had to update the BIOS and re-install the OS. There's also no backup (not my machine but helping someone who is in desperate need for their machine back).

My machine boots from an M.2 SSD and I have four disks configured as RAID0+1, everything was working perfectly before the OS update.

1) When I reinstalled the OS I did not want to mess with the drives in the array so I disconnected them and reinstalled the OS.
2) I reconnected the drives and rebooted into the BIOS, the SATA configuration was set to RAID
3) I rebooted into the OS and opened Intel Rapid Storage Technology and the array status was MasterVolume: Failed with two of the four disks showing "green" and two with warnings
4) The two disks show status of Uknown disk on Controller 255, port unknown

In the BIOS the Intel Rapid Storage Technology effectively displays the same information. It seems on the surface, the two disks are no longer members of the array. I have spend many many hours reading through forums where some say recreate the volume, others say you will lose everything. Is it possible to re-create the volume, or add these disks back to the volume w/o loosing data? These drivers were not touched, nothing has been written to them since the OS crash.


thanks in advance!


Machine Details
ASRock Extreme6/ac MB
BIOS 1.9
500GB M.2 SSD
four 2.7 TB HDs
 
Solution
G
[RESOLVED]
For those of you that have a RAID Array with volume information in tact (verified by an installation of R-Studio) and do not have a disk failure but Windows simply won't recognize it, here is the solution that worked for me.

Symptoms:
BIOS shows RAID array has missing disks and or unrecognized volumes
Intel Rapid Storage Technology shows disk array error with missing disks
Windows disk Manager shows physical drives and wants you to format them

My Configuration
SSD Windows Boot drive
RAID10 (Mirrored and Striped) 4 disks (data only nothing to do with the OS)

Myths
Re-creating a RAID volume will wipe your data
Recovering disk partitions requires formatting your disk
Recovering RAID failures requires "initializing" you disk and...
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Geekwon

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Sep 7, 2015
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Geekwon

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Sep 7, 2015
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Thanks for the reply. I accept the fact that performing backups is a good best practice, however, I do not accept that reconfiguring raid array for a very common scenario always defaults to the common you should have backed up your stuff answer.

Let me rephrase the question. How do you move a fully functioning raid array to another identical machine? Given the bios on the identical machine has not been configured for raid wouldn't reconfiguring the volume wipe the drives? There should be an equivalent of fix MBR for raid, and I am trying to figure out if deleting the volume and recreating it will preserve the data. Regardless of backup it is not practical to restore 25 terabytes of data every time you wanna move the array.

Isrt. Give me the option to mark the drive as spare then as available to add back to the array and I'm wondering if that is going to wipe the drive as that is what it says it will do. Giving it is raid zero and one. I am wondering if it will rebuild the array if I do this.
Thanks.
 
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USAFRet

USAFRet

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There are two considerations here:

The construction of the RAID array, and the actual data.

If you need to rebuild the RAID array, for whatever reason, this is easy.
Rebuild it, and copy your data from the backup.

If you need to rebuild the RAID array AND keep the actual data intact, this become much more difficult.
And a striped RAID 0 ups the level of difficulty again.


Its like a house.
If you need to demolish and rebuild it...you'd move your furniture out first.(a backup).
Build the house, and then move your furniture back in.

If you try to demolish and rebuild with the furniture in it...Granny's heirloom dining room table is going to be unhappy.
 
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Geekwon

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Sep 7, 2015
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Here is an update for everyone.

I used R-Studio to back things up. That took a full week but the folders are pretty well fragmented and I'm warry of the quality of the files.


I went into the BIOS Intel Rapid Storage configuration, dropped the volume and recreated it exactly like the other, ensuring the disks were in the exact order, volume name, stripe size, etc. BIOS created it, showed up as everything normal.

Reboot into Windows, Intel Rapid Storage Technology app, shows everything normal

Windows Disk Manager now shows the Disk as Unallocated and wants me to initialize. I didn't do this as I know that will really mess up my drives.

Open R-Studio again, this time my logical volumes are all in tact, and the folders don't have mangeled names, I previewed the files and everything looks good and in tact

Now about windows. I think I may have to go into diskpart and manually assign drive letters, but I'm holding here to do some more research. ;-)

btw as far as analogies its more like the mover moved my file cabinet to another room and spilled my index cards that told me where everything is all over the room.
 
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Geekwon

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Sep 7, 2015
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So I'm about to blow away the array but it kills me to know all the data on the disk is intact and the RAID volume information is also in tact. I just need to tell windows how to read it and although diskpart was useful it allows me to create new partitions which I assume may wipe my data.

Does anyone know if create a partitions with the exact same sizes and volume names if anyone had success?
 
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G

Geekwon

Honorable
Sep 7, 2015
19
0
10,520
[RESOLVED]
For those of you that have a RAID Array with volume information in tact (verified by an installation of R-Studio) and do not have a disk failure but Windows simply won't recognize it, here is the solution that worked for me.

Symptoms:
BIOS shows RAID array has missing disks and or unrecognized volumes
Intel Rapid Storage Technology shows disk array error with missing disks
Windows disk Manager shows physical drives and wants you to format them

My Configuration
SSD Windows Boot drive
RAID10 (Mirrored and Striped) 4 disks (data only nothing to do with the OS)

Myths
Re-creating a RAID volume will wipe your data
Recovering disk partitions requires formatting your disk
Recovering RAID failures requires "initializing" you disk and starting over after backup

My solution
I had serious windows MBR and configuration corruption. I unplugged my RAID disks and re-installed windows clean. Please note the controller and port of each disk and document their order.
I dropped the raid volume in the BIOS (not the software utility in Windows). Be careful to document exactly the stripe size, volume name, physical and logical sector sizes so you can use this to re-create it add the disk back in order
After saving and rebooting into windows check Intel Rapid Storage technology software app, it should show normal. don't proceed until this is showing up nominal.
The final problem is that windows still can't see the disk in disk manager. Save yourself a lot of trouble and spend $39 on MiniTool Professional and recover the partition. This will basically rebuild the partition information and let you assign a drive letter which windows needs to access the drives. Note diskpart doesn't support this type of RAID array so I wouldn't go down that path.

Do's and don'ts
never initialize an existing RAID array
never write anything to the disks that have the problem
fix one problem at a time, if Windows is screwed up, fix that first, then address your RAID configuration (my recommendation is unplug the RAID array and get windows working first)
Do backup your data. Know that your data is rarely lost, the "file allocation tables" and partition information may be screwed up but it's written to disk and basic recovery programs can always read it


 
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