Raid5 failure - can't rebuild - need help!

After some scary issues with hard drive failures in the past I decided to fork over the cash and try something safer. So, I put together a RAID5 array of 750GB discs - three HDDs total.

I am using the "Venus T5" SATA external enclosure which came packaged with the Sil3132 SATA controller.

The setup went fairly easy and I was rolling within minutes. This was close to a year ago.

Well, I have now learned that a RAID5 array may not necessarily be much safer than non-RAID drive backup because something has happened to my array and I can't access anything.

Nothing out of the ordinary triggered the event. I was uncompressing a large file, which was on the RAID array. During this process, Windows Explorer froze, but the uncompressing of the file continued. I waited until the file was completely uncompressed and then I restarted the computer.

When the computer was back online the array was not being seen by Windows XP Professional anymore (never had an issue for close to a year).

Hoping that I could just pop in a new HDD for an easy fix (rebuild) I went out and purchased a 1TB drive and popped it in.

I still do not have any options to rebuild.

Here are some screenshots to show what my array manager indicates.

The first screenshot shows four drives (1, 2, and 4 are the original drives belonging to the array - 3 is the new 1TB drive), and the event log. As you can see, the drives are discovered (Member 0 and Member 2 of Group 0 "Kahuna" ), but the array goes offline.

The second screenshot shows when I select the array in the left column. You can see the two HDDs are selected in the right column. I don't have the option to "rebuild".

Any help would be very much appreciated. Thinking a RAID5 array would be relatively safe, I have plenty of files that I would really like to have back.

Thanks!!

I don't have hand's-on experience with RAID, but don't you have to use same size disks? Adding a 1TB disc to an array of 750GBs might not work on all controllers (on others it might just use the first 750GB, I don't know).

Heya,

Just as a quick way to test something, I would suggest you download Ubuntu (or any other free OS that has native RAID support) and throw in the LiveCD and boot up with it. It will not install nor write to your drives and literally just load from the CD so that you can test drive the OS (fully active no less). Use it to see if it can access your disks, see if it detects the RAID, etc. A free way to check your disks out and see if Windows is the culprit here. Because really, unless all three drives are literally just corrupt or something, sounds like Windows is just being.... Windows.

Cheers,

Under Device - create a 'Spare' first.

I tried booting into Ubuntu, but something happens with the display adapter and the screen goes haywire when Ubuntu comes up (the first two menus are okay - English, boot from CD - but then the screen goes crazy).

So, that is my latest unsuccessful attempt to fix my problem. ;-(

http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/S [...] _v1.40.pdf

BTW

i have this exact same problem now. did you have any luck solving it?

thx