In article ,
(Cameron) wrote:
My system "had" two Seagate 80mb SATA drives set-up in a RAID 1
(mirror) configuration on an ASUS A7N8X Delux motherboard, using the
on-board Silicon Image Sil 3112A RAID controller. Several weeks ago my
system crashed and I was unable to boot or otherwise access my disk
drives. I did not have everything backed up, because I stupidly
thought the mirror would protect against a disk failure. I have a
years worth of digital photos on the computer and if I can't get them
back then my wife will probably never let me spend another cent on
computer hardware and other things. I'll basically be in hell for the
rest of my life. One more thing, I reside in a small and slightly
isolated country and I am the only one I know with SATA hard disks.
This is what has happened to date.
1. The disk was formatted in NTFS with three partitions; the lost data
is not on the partition with the operating system.
2. The RAID array has been working for about 12 months, albeit with
some problems.
3. On three occasions the PC would not boot. I would open the box and
disconnect one of the RAID drives. The machine would then boot. I
would shut down and reconnect the disconnected drive. The computer
would now boot with both drives and the Primary drive would be
rebuilt. I take it I had an intermittent problem with the Primary
drive.
4. Late one night a few weeks ago I noticed Windows XP had frozen.
Before going to bed I used the Power on/off switch to shut down. Next
morning the PC would not boot and my trick of disconnecting one of the
drives did not work. The PC was reporting Disk Boot Failure, insert
system disk and press enter.
5. The RAID utility screen was reporting Set0 Invalid RAID drive.
6. I tried to recover using the Windows CD, using F6 and S, inserting
floppy with drivers, etc. However, after loading drivers Windows
reports that no hard drive is available.
7. Use of DOS boot disks failed because the RAID drivers could not be
installed and the hard drive is therefore never visible.
8. I spent several days surfing forums and trying everything possible
to have the system recognize the disks without using the RAID utility
to delete the RAID array and start from scratch, presumably losing all
data in the process (not much help from the manuals on what happens
when a RAID array is deleted – for example, does mirroring stop and
each disk convert to stand alone hard disk?).
9. There are four options in the RAID utility:
Create RAID set (would kill all data?)
Delete RAID set (I don't dare)
Rebuild RAID set (cannot, invalid RAID drive)
Resolve conflicts (there are no conflicts to resolve)
10. By this time my kids are driving me crazy being on school holidays
and fighting over the remaining PC so I decided to buy a new IDE hard
drive and reinstall Windows onto it while I troubleshot my SATA
problem.
11. This is where I made a big mistake. When removing the disk drives
to install the new IDE drive, and reconnecting them on the bench, I
accidentally shorted out the Primary RAID drive. How do I know it is
shorted? When the drive is connected the PC will not power on. I did
not tell my wife about this. I am still assuring her the baby pictures
are safe. I had been telling her I had two drives from which to try
for a recovery. So now I must recover data from only a single SATA
drive, once part of a RAID 1 mirror!
12. I was hoping that with Windows XP installed on the IDE drive with
the SATA RAID drivers, the remaining RAID drive would be visible. No
such luck.
13. I sent an on-line message seeking guidance from Silicon Image tech
support and received no reply.
After searching the Web for a solution these last few weeks, I am
still uncertain of the following:
a) How is a single SATA drive connected to the ASUS A7N8X? Is it to be
configured as RAID 0 striped array? There is no help in the manual on
this.
b) What happens when a RAID array is deleted, is all data lost? I am
hoping that if I delete the array then the disk would be seen by
Windows and I can at the least recover the data in the secondary
partitions. On the other hand, this option may not even work since the
utility reports Invalid RAID drive.
c) Will all data be lost forever if I Create a new RAID array using a
single disk?
d) What about the security of the NTFS file system, will I be able to
see my files if I do recover the disk and can see it after booting on
the IDE disk?
e) Can the data be recovered and NTFS defeated with disk recovery
software? How much would this cost from a professional Company.
f) It did occur to me that the problem with my RAID drives was a
corrupt BIOS and I have been thinking of flashing the latest BIOS,
which is stated to have resolved some SATA bugs. I've never flashed
before and some advice on the net is to do this only if essential. The
advice if a problem occurs is to seek professional help. Where I live
there is no tech support in this respect and so I have been loath to
flash the new Bios. Should I do it and what is the chance I will run
into an unrecoverable problem?
g) What to do with the shorted out RAID drive? Can it be fixed or
should I bin it?
h) Can anyone offer any an alternate way to recover the data and save
me from a life of everlasting hell as I'll constantly be reminded that
my $2000 home built PC lost the family snapshots?
I very much appreciate everyone's time in reading through my problem
and all advice will be very gratefully received.
I have no idea whether it is safe to "Delete Array Set" and
"Create Array Set". Unless someone can come up with a better
solution, this is what I would try...
*****
This web site has a link to a driver for the SIL3112, that runs
it in non-RAID mode.
http://www.syba.com/us/en/support_do...73-0203-1.html
http://www.syba.com/us/bin/silicon_i..._v1.1.0.52.zip
"; This INF file installs the Silicon Image Serial ATA non-Raid
; driver for the SiI 3x12 controllers on systems running Windows
; 98/ME, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows
; Server 2003."
Install WinXP on the IDE drive, then the syba driver. Then, reconnect
the remaining good SATA drive (only the IDE should be present during
the install of WinXP, for safety sake). If you can see partitions, back
them up. If you cannot see partitions, see if a program like the
following, can at least make an image of the entire drive at the
sector level. This way, you'll have a backup copy of your RAID drive,
in case something goes wrong in any further attempts to recover
the data.
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/englis.../UserGuide.pdf
Another way to attack the problem, would be to buy a separate
SATA controller card that can operate in non-RAID mode and put
the remaining good drive on it. That is, if the syba driver
above doesn't work for you.
If the partitions cannot be seen, and you manage to back up
the whole drive, using DriveImage7, then you can do whatever
you want in the way of experiments to the drive, as you can
always restore the image and try again.
*****
This site discusses RAID in a general manner, and points out
that a mirror doesn't protect against a power failure while
the mirror is in use. Backups are required, whether you are
using a mirror or a RAID5, because the computer could burn
up, or the power supply could over-volt all the drives in
the computer, in which case, all your data is gone.
http://ldp.c-s-p.com/HOWTO/Software-...x-HOWTO-4.html
As for flashing the BIOS, with your luck so far, would this
be a wise idea ? If you want to plan ahead, a BIOS Savior,
from ioss.com.tw, is available for $25 and has a duplicate
BIOS chip on it. You can flip between "A" or "B" flash chip,
so you always have a good one to fall back on. Once the
BIOS Savior is installed, you can go crazy with the flashing.
HTH,
Paul