Raid 0 Disk Inbalance

Eriedor

Eriedor

Eriedor

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A friend has mentioned that there raid is playing up. And they said they saw that the sizes of data on each disk is different which surely is incorrect for a mirrored raid.

Anyway basicly what i want to know is if the raid us guffed up whats the process for fixing it? Can you use the motherboards utillity to rebuild it or is it gonna be a full back, format, rebuild array?

Just want to know in advance before i go to his place so i can prepare better.

Thanks
 
OK, just to clarify are we talking about a mirrored pair (RAID1) or a striped pair (RAID0 as per thread title)?

What's the hardware in question (drives, mobo, RAID controller etc)?

How is your friend determining how much data is on each disk?
 
Can I advise caution?

I understand that you want to help your friend and that is very laudable, but I wouldn't touch a 'friends' PC simply because they are my friend and I want it to stay that way.

If you really do feel obliged to help them;

1. Take everything you might need to back-up, rebuild and restore the PC (including checking that they have a system restore CD if it's a Dell or eMachines type thing or the relevant motherboard drivers if it's a home-brew)
2. Make sure you know what you are doing
3. Make sure you have enough time available so that you don't have to come back to finish the job
4. Make sure they understand that any data they lose is their responsibility. Getting it in writing is completely over the top but it might emphasise to them just how risky the procedure you are about to undertake is.

I base this advice on the experience of a work colleague who volunteered to help out an attractive young woman he met at a party. She was the sister of one of his friends and his thinking at the time was along the lines of fix hardware, restore software, remove underwear. To cut a long story short he went back 4 times, by which time she was utterly distraught as her un-backed-up PhD thesis was on the RAID array and it wasn't coming back any time soon. He ended up sending it to Vogon to get the data back from it at the cost of almost £600. And she still didn't fancy him....

Good luck.
 
Thanks for the replies people.

Naturally before i go plowing into the raid config i will backup anything of value on the raid. I was simply wondering if it could be fixed by the util or will i have to budget time for a full backup and reinstall of windows.

Sorry i got the raid wrong, always mix up striped and mirrored. it is infact raid 1.
 
Generally, when the RAID controller initialises itself it checks the two images are the same and it will flash a warning during the initialisation process and offer the opportunity to rebuild the array. If that's not happening it's unlikely there is anything wrong with the mirror.

rpstewart said:
How is your friend determining how much data is on each disk?
Click to expand...

I would also like to know this as in a RAID 1 setup you generally only see one disk.
 
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