Software RAID Recovery

Just experienced a hard drive failure that has Mirrored Drives. The problem
is I think when the one drive went bad it corrupted the other drive.

So know I have a broken HD, a good HD that shows data when I install it in
another computer but it won't boot the server. They are SCSI drives.

Tried the repair install but SBS doesn't see this disk.

Does anyone know if I can just Ghost this disk that shows data and the OS
on it to another drive in another PC?

I was close to calling OnTrack for data recovery just not sure how much they
charge and how good the results are. If anyone has any feedback I would be
interested in knowing.


Thanks

arrowsmith
Tue Mar 25 20:56:50 PDT 2008

Have you tried changing the boot order in the BIOS from the RAID to the
single drive?
That may help.

Also perhaps try checking the drives status in Disk Management if you boot
the drive up in another PC.

If both of those fail, then yes, attempt to Ghost it to another disk and
ensure that it is initialized and ready to boot.

Kris


Joe wrote:
>Just experienced a hard drive failure that has Mirrored Drives. The problem
>is I think when the one drive went bad it corrupted the other drive.
>
>So know I have a broken HD, a good HD that shows data when I install it in
>another computer but it won't boot the server. They are SCSI drives.
>
>Tried the repair install but SBS doesn't see this disk.
>
>Does anyone know if I can just Ghost this disk that shows data and the OS
>on it to another drive in another PC?
>
>I was close to calling OnTrack for data recovery just not sure how much they
>charge and how good the results are. If anyone has any feedback I would be
>interested in knowing.
>
>Thanks

--
Message posted via http://www.winserverkb.com

arrowsmith
Tue Mar 25 20:59:31 PDT 2008

actually, as i posted my last msg, i notices you said software RAID,
therefore BIOS has nothing to do with it.
Yes try ghosting it to a new disk. That's what i have had to do before.
Don't make the new disk dymanic unless you really have to if recreating the
RAID again.

arrowsmith wrote:
>Have you tried changing the boot order in the BIOS from the RAID to the
>single drive?
>That may help.
>
>Also perhaps try checking the drives status in Disk Management if you boot
>the drive up in another PC.
>
>If both of those fail, then yes, attempt to Ghost it to another disk and
>ensure that it is initialized and ready to boot.
>
>Kris
>
>>Just experienced a hard drive failure that has Mirrored Drives. The problem
>>is I think when the one drive went bad it corrupted the other drive.
>[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>>
>>Thanks

--
Message posted via WinServerKB.com
http://www.winserverkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/sbs-2003/200803/1

RyUK
Wed Mar 26 03:13:03 PDT 2008

I had the same thing last week....

My resolution was;

Take faulty HDD out and replace it with an IDENTICAL (<- Important with
software raid) HDD to the one left in there. (though will still work if not
identical, same problem may happen in future if one fails).

Create a boot disk - I just used a boot.ini from a working SBS
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119467) and that went straight into it. I
then initialised and mirrored the new disk to the existing

Once it had synchronised I booted into repair console, did fixboot and
fixmbr and it booted up fine.

Hope this helps, it saved my life!

Cheers.
Ryan

"arrowsmith via WinServerKB.com" wrote:

> actually, as i posted my last msg, i notices you said software RAID,
> therefore BIOS has nothing to do with it.
> Yes try ghosting it to a new disk. That's what i have had to do before.
> Don't make the new disk dymanic unless you really have to if recreating the
> RAID again.
>
> arrowsmith wrote:
> >Have you tried changing the boot order in the BIOS from the RAID to the
> >single drive?
> >That may help.
> >
> >Also perhaps try checking the drives status in Disk Management if you boot
> >the drive up in another PC.
> >
> >If both of those fail, then yes, attempt to Ghost it to another disk and
> >ensure that it is initialized and ready to boot.
> >
> >Kris
> >
> >>Just experienced a hard drive failure that has Mirrored Drives. The problem
> >>is I think when the one drive went bad it corrupted the other drive.
> >[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
> >>
> >>Thanks
>
> --
> Message posted via WinServerKB.com
> http://www.winserverkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/sbs-2003/200803/1
>
>

Jim
Wed Mar 26 06:16:13 PDT 2008

One frustration is that two drives that are marked as having the same
capacity may be different by 2 megs or 26 megs or some other random
size. Unless they were built on the same run and same firmware you may
have a frustration getting a perfect or better match. If the new
drive is smaller than you are jammed up. I would Ghost the drive to a
bigger IDE drive and try to boot off the bigger IDE drive to see if it
works.Or you may try changing the scsi id jumper on the good one to
match what was on the bad drive. I do not do software raid anymore so
I have no ideas about repairs. Of course you can always do a restore
from you nightly full backup after you fix the array.

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 03:13:03 -0700, Ry-UK
<RyUK@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>I had the same thing last week....
>
>My resolution was;
>
>Take faulty HDD out and replace it with an IDENTICAL (<- Important with
>software raid) HDD to the one left in there. (though will still work if not
>identical, same problem may happen in future if one fails).
>
>Create a boot disk - I just used a boot.ini from a working SBS
>(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/119467) and that went straight into it. I
>then initialised and mirrored the new disk to the existing
>
>Once it had synchronised I booted into repair console, did fixboot and
>fixmbr and it booted up fine.
>
>Hope this helps, it saved my life!
>
>Cheers.
>Ryan
>
>"arrowsmith via WinServerKB.com" wrote:
>
>> actually, as i posted my last msg, i notices you said software RAID,
>> therefore BIOS has nothing to do with it.
>> Yes try ghosting it to a new disk. That's what i have had to do before.
>> Don't make the new disk dymanic unless you really have to if recreating the
>> RAID again.
>>
>> arrowsmith wrote:
>> >Have you tried changing the boot order in the BIOS from the RAID to the
>> >single drive?
>> >That may help.
>> >
>> >Also perhaps try checking the drives status in Disk Management if you boot
>> >the drive up in another PC.
>> >
>> >If both of those fail, then yes, attempt to Ghost it to another disk and
>> >ensure that it is initialized and ready to boot.
>> >
>> >Kris
>> >
>> >>Just experienced a hard drive failure that has Mirrored Drives. The problem
>> >>is I think when the one drive went bad it corrupted the other drive.
>> >[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>> >>
>> >>Thanks
>>
>> --
>> Message posted via WinServerKB.com
>> http://www.winserverkb.com/Uwe/Forums.aspx/sbs-2003/200803/1
>>
>>
See what SBS support is working on
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