RAID 0 Restoration Question(s)

Hello all!

Computer: Dell Precision T7400 workstation

OS: Windows 10

Hardware RAID (Dell's SAS Configuration Utility)

4x 1 TB Hitachi Ultrastar drives (2x in a RAID 1, 2x in RAID 0)

The RAID 1 has the OS installation, while the RAID 0 was where I stored video files.

Problem:

The RAID controller is giving an error message saying one of the RAID 0 disks failed (see BIOS_Error.jpg). It gets past the BIOS into Windows 10 (kinda) but Windows says it can't boot all the way. When I go into the RAID controller interface, it shows 3 disks working fine and the last one as missing/failed (see RAID_Controller.jpg).

What's interesting is that, when I took out the failed drive and attached it to a second desktop I have, the second desktop's BIOS said it recognized the failed disk.

At this point, I'm just wanting to restore the RAID 0 and get the video files off of it. I wasn't backing them up, and this is a "lesson-learned" experience.

My question is: If I have another 1 TB hard drive laying around, could I clone the failed disk to it and use the second disk to recover the RAID 0? I have a spare hard drive--1 TB WD Caviar Blue--that is working fine. From what I can tell, it has the same specs as the Hitachi (same RPMs and same cache size). Can I possibly clone the failed Hitachi drive to the WD drive using ddrescue or something similar? Or should I consider professional data recovery options? I want to recover the data on the RAID 0 if at all possible, and if I can do it myself that would be great. (And no--I'm not keeping the old RAID 0 around; I'm going to replace it with a RAID 1 ASAP.)

Thanks for your help! Let me know if you need any more information.

Kalamari 2.0

Edited by hamluis, 18 July 2017 - 12:55 PM.
Moved from Internal Hardware to Backup/Imaging - Hamluis.

IMO...the fact that the drive was recognized on a second system...means nothing.  When drives fail, they can display intermittent failure patterns since I don't believe they necessarily lose all functionality, never more to momentarily rise from the dead.

I would have run the appropriate hard drive diagnostic...if I wanted to be sure of functional status with a more credible indication.

Then again...the RAID configuration may be broken.

Cloning a disk that has reflected problems...is, at best, a step where success should not be anticipated, IMO.

Louis.

Thanks for the quick reply! It's looking like a RAID configuration issue. I ran SeaTools, and the disk passed all basic tests I ran against it (SMART test, short DST, and short generic). I also cloned the disk using dd_rescue with zero errors.

I did the following one at a time and rebooted to see if it would fix the issue:

• Swapped the 'bad' drive out with the cloned drive (the spare WD drive mentioned earlier)
• Swapped the 'bad' drive's SATA cable with another cable
• Verified the SATA ports on the motherboard worked by swapping SATA port connections  

In every case, the RAID still comes up as "Failed". The RAID configuration details says it detects all four physical drives but says the 'bad' drive isn't part of a RAID.

I'm glad the drive seems fine, but I'm not sure how to address the RAID controller issue. Is it possible to salvage the RAID on a different controller? The BIOS says it's a Dell SAS 6 controller. Interestingly enough, I have a spare Dell PowerEdge 1950 III, which Dell says (https://www.dell.com/downloads/global/power/ps2q08-20080312-Dixit.pdf) has the same SAS 6 controller. Would that computer be useful in data recovery?

EDIT: The RAID controller is an integrated controller, not a separate card.

Edited by kalamari_2-0, 18 July 2017 - 11:53 AM.

You might want to post over in community.spiceworks.com -- there are three forums that I know of that probably can add to your understanding and can light the way to a solution set -- that just might include sending the whole set to a DR company/specialist.  If the HD in question has a physical failure or an imminent physical failure, the sooner a DR person gets the set, the better the odds of recovery.  If such is a logical failure or an imminent logical failure, the folks over in community.spiceworks can guide you to a solution set.
 

Although there are probably many forums that I am not aware over in community.spiceworks.com -- the three I know of:

data backup, data recovery, disaster recovery planning.

Addendum:  I just now added the hardware forum to my collection of reading material.

Edited by RolandJS, 19 July 2017 - 12:43 PM.

Thank you for the pointer! I've heard of SpiceWorks before but didn't think about them when this problem came up. I'll head over there and get their advice too. Thanks!

Thank you for the pointer! I've heard of SpiceWorks before but didn't think about them when this problem came up. I'll head over there and get their advice too. Thanks!

Be sure to indicate upfront that you earlier posted in bleepingcomputer.com and that you also want help from spicework folks.  Addendum:  Don't misunderstand, there are several very good RAID folks here in BC, I simply want to let you know there is another forum that also contains several very good RAID folks.

Edited by RolandJS, 19 July 2017 - 05:48 PM.

I did some more troubleshooting and realized the data issues went deeper than the RAID configuration; the other RAID had corrupted files as well, though the BIOS said the RIAD itself was fine. I'm pretty sure we had a power outage or something while the computer was in the middle of installing updates. Since the issue went deeper than a simple RAID problem, I decided to just clone the mirrored RAID, abandon the striped RAID, and reinstall Windows 10. Thankfully, most important files were on the mirrored RAID and were easily recovered from the disk clone. I never actually asked the Spiceworks community for advice.

Thanks for your help, RolandJS and hamluis! I really appreciate it. After this experience, I'm going to stay away from RAID 0 from now on.