Issue: Trying to Fix Broken Raid 1.
I have been trying to fix this strange issue but no success yet. I want to use this thread as a discussion about how to fix it and what I am/was doing wrong.
Configuration:
CPU: Pentuim 4 3.0
MB: Asus P5GD1
RAID Controller: Intel ICHR6
HD: 2x200 GB SATA Western Digital
Partions: 2 partitions (C & D)
RAID Setup: RAID 0 (HD mirroring)
Backup: BackedUp Image of C using Drive Image XML program.
Initially system was all perfectly fine. RAID 0 was all good. One day I noticed that I was able to see 4 local disks under "my computer". Right way I realized that my RAID was broken. If RAID was ok then I should only see 2 local disks i.e. local Disk C and Local Disk D, However, I was able to see the other Hard drive's partitions as well adding 2 more local disk partitions in "my computer"
I booted my machine and open the BIOS then realized that my system was set back to standard IDE configuration instead of RAID Array. I thought fix is very simple. I changed the BIOS back to RAID setup and try to boot the machine. I got the error "missing or corrupt hal.dll" file. I searched the internet about how to fix it.
Solution was, boot from win xp cd and run recovery console and issue few commands such as "bootcfg/rebuild". Not so simple. My SATA drives were not visible, offcourse thanks to SATA drivers not being installed automatically. I managed to installed the required RAID /SATA drivers and i ran the command. When I booted the system my winxp system dir was screwed and was unable to boot. Luckily I had the backed up image so I restored the image and was able to boot but without the raid configuration.
Then I thought about the second solution. I thought I will get another IDE hard drive, Install it and restore the backed Image to this new Hard drive and boot from it. Once I have the system booted from the new drive then I can delete and recreate RAID array and restore the system back from the backed image. Guess what?? Once I restored the image on the new dirve, I could not boot from it. I guess even the boot device was set to new drive but some how the image was not designed for this new IDE drive. Strange even though backed image was created in broken RAID setup. There must be some thing which prevent this. I error i got was theat no bootable media found. Looks like even the hard drive was ok but it did not have the bootable image on it. Or Image was not the right type.
Now I ask you smart folks to help me out. I think I have explained it well, if still there is any confusion I would try to explain again. I really appreciate your time and efforts to help me solve this issue. It really bothers me that I could not find a easy solutiion to this issue. Just to add here, please keep these points in mind when proposing a solution.
1. Data is very critical.
2. I want to avoid reinstalation of OS and All applications.
Thanks again,
kuldip
I have been trying to fix this strange issue but no success yet. I want to use this thread as a discussion about how to fix it and what I am/was doing wrong.
Configuration:
CPU: Pentuim 4 3.0
MB: Asus P5GD1
RAID Controller: Intel ICHR6
HD: 2x200 GB SATA Western Digital
Partions: 2 partitions (C & D)
RAID Setup: RAID 0 (HD mirroring)
Backup: BackedUp Image of C using Drive Image XML program.
Initially system was all perfectly fine. RAID 0 was all good. One day I noticed that I was able to see 4 local disks under "my computer". Right way I realized that my RAID was broken. If RAID was ok then I should only see 2 local disks i.e. local Disk C and Local Disk D, However, I was able to see the other Hard drive's partitions as well adding 2 more local disk partitions in "my computer"
I booted my machine and open the BIOS then realized that my system was set back to standard IDE configuration instead of RAID Array. I thought fix is very simple. I changed the BIOS back to RAID setup and try to boot the machine. I got the error "missing or corrupt hal.dll" file. I searched the internet about how to fix it.
Solution was, boot from win xp cd and run recovery console and issue few commands such as "bootcfg/rebuild". Not so simple. My SATA drives were not visible, offcourse thanks to SATA drivers not being installed automatically. I managed to installed the required RAID /SATA drivers and i ran the command. When I booted the system my winxp system dir was screwed and was unable to boot. Luckily I had the backed up image so I restored the image and was able to boot but without the raid configuration.
Then I thought about the second solution. I thought I will get another IDE hard drive, Install it and restore the backed Image to this new Hard drive and boot from it. Once I have the system booted from the new drive then I can delete and recreate RAID array and restore the system back from the backed image. Guess what?? Once I restored the image on the new dirve, I could not boot from it. I guess even the boot device was set to new drive but some how the image was not designed for this new IDE drive. Strange even though backed image was created in broken RAID setup. There must be some thing which prevent this. I error i got was theat no bootable media found. Looks like even the hard drive was ok but it did not have the bootable image on it. Or Image was not the right type.
Now I ask you smart folks to help me out. I think I have explained it well, if still there is any confusion I would try to explain again. I really appreciate your time and efforts to help me solve this issue. It really bothers me that I could not find a easy solutiion to this issue. Just to add here, please keep these points in mind when proposing a solution.
1. Data is very critical.
2. I want to avoid reinstalation of OS and All applications.
Thanks again,
kuldip