Hi All,
I am seeing some weirdness with my RAID array that I cannot explain, and I'm hoping someone in this forum can clear up my confusion.
I have a Windows XP Pro machine that has a HighPoint RocketRaid 1640 in it. A few years ago, I set it up with a RAID 5 array consisting of four 400GB drives. Time went by, and all was well.
A few weeks ago, the machine started making a loud buzzing noise, that sounded like a hard drive was failing, so I shut it down. I assumed that one of my four drives had failed, and that I would need to replace that drive. I booted the machine up again, expecting HighPoint's BIOS utility to tell me which drive had gone bad.
So, as the machine is booting, the first thing that comes up in the BIOS Utility is a message indicating that the array has failed. It shows "Remained Drives" on channel 1, 3, and 4, and gives me the choice to either destroy the array (no thank you!) or to hide it and continue booting. (The RAID array is purely storage, the OS lives on another drive).
I select the option to hide the array and continue booting, but then an identical error screen pops up, this one showing only a single "Remained Drive" on channel 2. It gives me the same options, destroy the array, or hide it and continue booting.
At this point I was surprised and confused, so I spent some time browsing through the BIOS utility -- If I go to the list of my arrays, it shows two entries, both with the same identifier, and both with a capacity of 1200 GB. If I go to the list of devices, it shows all four hard drives -- but for some reason the "BOOT" column is not marked for drive number 2, while it is marked for the 1, 3, and 4.
The most confusing thing is that if I choose "Hide this array and continue booting" for both of the error screens that come up, and allow the machine to boot into windows, the logical volume that is my RAID 5 array is still visible, and still seems to work. Since this is RAID 5, I would have expected that a problem with any drive would render it useless until such time as I can replace that drive and rebuild.
So. . . what the heck is going on, and what should I do? Why does the RocketRaid now think it has 2 failed arrays, but act like it still has one working one? Should I replace drive number 2 and rebuild the array? Should I toggle that drive's boot flag and see if the problem goes away?
I have held off on doing anything, because I don't want to lose my data, and this weird behavior makes me hesitant to try anything. I'd deeply appreciate any insight that anyone may be able to provide.
Thanks in Advance,
Eric
I am seeing some weirdness with my RAID array that I cannot explain, and I'm hoping someone in this forum can clear up my confusion.
I have a Windows XP Pro machine that has a HighPoint RocketRaid 1640 in it. A few years ago, I set it up with a RAID 5 array consisting of four 400GB drives. Time went by, and all was well.
A few weeks ago, the machine started making a loud buzzing noise, that sounded like a hard drive was failing, so I shut it down. I assumed that one of my four drives had failed, and that I would need to replace that drive. I booted the machine up again, expecting HighPoint's BIOS utility to tell me which drive had gone bad.
So, as the machine is booting, the first thing that comes up in the BIOS Utility is a message indicating that the array has failed. It shows "Remained Drives" on channel 1, 3, and 4, and gives me the choice to either destroy the array (no thank you!) or to hide it and continue booting. (The RAID array is purely storage, the OS lives on another drive).
I select the option to hide the array and continue booting, but then an identical error screen pops up, this one showing only a single "Remained Drive" on channel 2. It gives me the same options, destroy the array, or hide it and continue booting.
At this point I was surprised and confused, so I spent some time browsing through the BIOS utility -- If I go to the list of my arrays, it shows two entries, both with the same identifier, and both with a capacity of 1200 GB. If I go to the list of devices, it shows all four hard drives -- but for some reason the "BOOT" column is not marked for drive number 2, while it is marked for the 1, 3, and 4.
The most confusing thing is that if I choose "Hide this array and continue booting" for both of the error screens that come up, and allow the machine to boot into windows, the logical volume that is my RAID 5 array is still visible, and still seems to work. Since this is RAID 5, I would have expected that a problem with any drive would render it useless until such time as I can replace that drive and rebuild.
So. . . what the heck is going on, and what should I do? Why does the RocketRaid now think it has 2 failed arrays, but act like it still has one working one? Should I replace drive number 2 and rebuild the array? Should I toggle that drive's boot flag and see if the problem goes away?
I have held off on doing anything, because I don't want to lose my data, and this weird behavior makes me hesitant to try anything. I'd deeply appreciate any insight that anyone may be able to provide.
Thanks in Advance,
Eric
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