Raid Array failed

Boozebeard

Boozebeard

Boozebeard

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22 Jan 2010
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Hello, my house mates computer has stopped working. It starts up and goes through the bios screen and stuff and then comes to a message about his raid array having failed. I've never used a raid setup before so this is a bit outside of knowledge.

He bought the computer pre built so doesn't exactly know how it was set up. It's labelled RAID ID 0, I'm not sure if that means it's in raid 0 or if it's raid array number 0. I think it might be setup as 0 as it is made from 2 750gb disks and the raid array is displayed at 1500gb. It also says it's failed and that it's not bootable.

On the information for the separate disks one is labelled as "errors(0)" and the other "non-raid disk".

At first I assumed that the error disk had failed but why is the other one being labelled as not even being a raid disk? Anyone tell me exactly what's wrong, has one of the disk failed? If so which one? or has the configuration got messed up somehow? I'm aware that if it is in RAID 0 and one has failed then that makes both hard drives redundant, right?
 
The one with the error is likely to have failed. Remove the drive and test it in another machine. If you can't do that use a different sata cable on a different motherboard port. This will confirm whether the drive is faulty or not. The other raided disk will be marked 'non raid disk' as without the first disk there is no raid array left, hence it is spare.

Depending on how important the data on the machine was, and whether you have a backup if it is valuable depends on what you do next.

If you have a restore cd, then you can simply replace the failed drive with another 750Gb (or larger) and then create a new array with the two disks, then do a system restore.

Hope that this helps
 
You would need to do some serious data recovery on the one the failed drive and then combine with the 2nd drive to recover each full file.

I would be asking your house mate if there is anything truly needed on the drives. If there is then professional recovery may be an option. The more you tinker the greater the risk to that data.

I've done data recovery on a best effort basis after a reformat, but in that case I was dealing with 1 hard drive and knew the drive itself was fine.
 
Quote from Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy "can't you put it in the freezer or something. Yes you can. Will it do any good. No"

If the data is really important then you can buy an identical drive and swap the drive electronics (as it is this that most usually fails) but it is difficult and risky.
 
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