Help With RAID.

[farquea]

We have a RAID 1 setup on one of our servers. One of the drives on it has gone BOOM but at the same time as it was failing we noticed that the windows install seems to of been corrupted (random errors) features missing/not working properly and thinks not looking right.

 

Anyway we have swapped the drives (Original was a maxtor but the one we've been sent by our support company is a WD) my understanding is as long as they are the same szie drives it should be a problem. However with the new drive plugged in, if we try to rebuild the array it wont let us and brings up a general error with some reasons why ie this might be a RAID 0, the drive sizes are not same etc.

 

But if we just try and boot the server with the 1 working HD it wont pass the RAID screen and says the RAID is missing and cant load windows which i assume isnt good as surely the point of a RAID 1 is that should 1 drive fail and be removed the server should still use the other drive to boot right?

 

So my question is am i missing something or does it sound like the raid needs recreating and windows reinstalling?

[Michael]

If it was a RAID 0, in simple terms Windows would be split across two drives which would in theory speed things up, however if a drive fails you have no redundancy.

 

If it was a RAID 1, Windows would be installed on one drive but a copy would be made to a second drive, so in the event of a failure either drive will take over. To be honest I'd be very surprised if it was a RAID 0 if this is your primary server in your network.

 

The best advice I can offer is switch the server on and get into the RAID BIOS. Consult the manual for what you need to press. This will tell you what type of RAID has been setup with a status.

 

You are right in assuming the same spec of hard drive is recommended, but you could in theory install an 80GB and 160GB as a RAID 1 array, but only 80GB would be useable of the 160GB drive. Generally speaking I always install two identical drives for the best performance.

 

If you're not having much luck, I would get a second WD drive to the one you have, enter the RAID BIOS and create a RAID 1 array. Then proceed to install Windows. Name the server what it should be and also specify the static IP it requires. Do not create a domain or anything, leave it in a Workgroup for the time being! Now perform a full system restore (including system state), then reboot and everything should be back to what it was. I just hope you have a backup!!

[farquea]

its definitely RAID 1, i know that its just that it refuses to boot pas the raid configuration screen with only the 1 working drive in (which im assuming it should do providing everything on that 1 drive is fine) and everything ive tried to rebuild the array it doesnt want to do it so im assuming the whole things is cocked up and isnt going to be a simple array rebuild

[Michael]

It is of course possible to have two failed drives at once, just very unlucky for it to happen!

 

I would say you could chance it and try performing a system repair, but on the other hand if it's not booting or rebuilding the array the problem could be bigger.

If possible I would try and get another identical WD drive. Try creating a RAID 1 array with these. If that fails then there could be a problem with the RAID controller.