Raid0 diskd failing

[Biev76]

Hi

I have a recent Dell XPS with a raid0 setup, and for some reason the disks are now failing when I try to boot the PC. I also hear a soft alarm coming from the disks it seems. During booting, I get the option to enter Setup (F2) or enter boot options (F12), both of which seem to do nothing. It just continues to a screen where it says the disks have failed, and offers me some options via CTRL + i. I have a hi-res pic of that screen here (the option highlighted at the top of the screen says "Recovery Volume Options"):

http://i1204.photobucket.com/albums/bb410/biev76/IMG_2131.jpg

I am no hardware expert, so I wanted to get some advice before I proceed. Is there anything I can do to fix this? If needed, I can lose the data on the disks, it would not be preferable, but it would also not be the end of the world.

Thanks!

 

[x Heavy]

Are you using ONE disk in total?

At that least two arrays = 4 total hard drives, one of which should fail.

But a total and complete failure indicates to me that you either were very unlucky or burned up just one disk.

Throw it out and replace it with at least two smaller good drives and build a proper raid array. That is one array with a list of member drives. Worry about flying two arrays later.

 

[captaincharisma]

its may be possible it might just be only one disk failing. if one disk fails in a raid 0 it is like having 1 non raid HDD failing because all data is spread across omne drive. i would try opening it up and try to pinpoint what drive is failing by pulling the power on one of the drives and listening for any noises like a clicking noise.

but being a raid 0 it is likely if even one drive fails all your data is gone

 

[howardp6]

Hopefully you have backup of all your data and have installation disks for your OS and software. Raid 0 is a stripe set, where the data is written to two or more disks. This is done to increase the speed. Unless you have the data recovered professionally there is no way to recover the data. It very expense to have failed hard drives recovered.

 

[x Heavy]

The issue I am having is the screenshot which implies that this person partitioned one disk and then built some kind a franken-raid out of it as a work around to the 2 tb barrier or something.

 

[Biev76]

If I remember correctly, the first time I started the computer after buying it, it (windows 7) asked me how to partition the drives. I don't recall ever having to specify anything about the raid configuration. I am a total noob when it comes to these things, so I wouldn't even know how to mess with the raid setup.

So, basically, the question now seems to be: given the fact that I have no idea how to configure raid and such, is there anything I can do to get this PC running again myself, or does it look like a genuine hardware issue and will I need to start replacing things? If it is a HDD failure, can I simply plug in a new one and will the raid controller pick it up?

 

[Biev76]

Also, When I opened up the machine this weekend, it seemed to have two disks, not one.

 

[jgarrow]

Also, When I opened up the machine this weekend, it seemed to have two disks, not one.

What you have there is a RAID matrix. You can read about it at these two links

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=628174
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/intel-stakes-its-vision-of-the-pc-future-with-775-launch,review-980-31.html

the only good news is anything on the Raid 1 should be sill there.. you just need to get another computer and hook up the drive and get your data from ARRAY1 back. but it does look like you lost a drive.. so anything that was on C: drive is gone unless you can get the other drive to show back up.. check the connections maby something came loose ?

 

[jgarrow]

its may be possible it might just be only one disk failing. if one disk fails in a raid 0 it is like having 1 non raid HDD failing because all data is spread across omne drive. i would try opening it up and try to pinpoint what drive is failing by pulling the power on one of the drives and listening for any noises like a clicking noise.

but being a raid 0 it is likely if even one drive fails all your data is gone

anything that was on C: is gone.. unless he can get that drive to start working again.. if you do get that drive to work again Biev76 and it wasnt something simple like a connection i would replace both drives, and maby thing about getting 4 drives and setting up a RAID 10. and wow has noone here ever heard of a raid matrix?