Failed Disk Netcell RAID 3 - Cant rebuild, Cant read - Help!

[Hawkeyes]

Hi All,

Noob to HEXUS here. Seems like you guys are the only ones with an ongoing Netcell RAID card thread (News) that I could find. Sure wish I could get some pointers on what to do.

I lost a drive on my 5-port Netcell RAID array (RAID 3). I could still access the data, but warned if another drive failed I'd lose it all. It's an XFX Revo 64 5-Port PCI card, Firmware v1.5.3.5. Box is built with ASUS mobo, AMD 64 cpu, 1g corsair ram, running WinXP pro. System has been stable 2 years.

Netcell is out of business, but the manual tells me to shut down, replace bad drive, reboot, enter the Netcell bios (ctrl/n), enter number corresponding to REBUILD, save changes, continue with boot. Said the RAID array would be useable while rebuilding, but not protected. That's what I did. Original drives were all WD Caviar 400g - I replaced the bad one with a Hitachi 400g.

Problem is that when I tried REBUILD ARRAY, Netcell Bios said there is nothing wrong with the RAID array. It showed a 4-drive RAID 3 as being OK, with one additional drive (Hitachi) unassigned.

I tried CREATE ARRAY on the 5th drive (Hitachi) & got a one drive array. So I did a DELETE ARRAY,which did not wipe out any data on the 5th drive (Hitachi) array.

I then deleted the 4-drive RAID 3 & created & saved a 5 drive RAID 3, which now included the Hitachi drive.

I got out of Netcell bios, continued boot. When Windows came up I went into the SyncRAID Utility (comes with the NetCell card) & checked the array. It shows a 5-drive RAID 3 array, 1490.44GB, says it is working & ARRAY PROTECTED. OK, so far so good.

I then tried to access the RAID 3 array thru both the shortcut and My Computer (drive K), but got a window stating 'The disk in drive K is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?' I clicked yes & the new window showed a 1.09TB capacity. Freaking out, I exited & went to Admin Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management. Disk Management shows drive K having 2 partitions, one with 1118.26GB Healthy (Active), the other with 372.19GB Unallocated.

That's where I stopped. I've searched the net, but have only found information that is same as in the manual. One source indicated it would take 30 hours for a rebuild - it's been 48 since I did all this.

Any ideas what I should do next? This RAID has all my backup data, passwords, financial, plus loads of 35mm pics, home movies going back to '87. It appears the data is still there, I just dont know how to get it or fix/rebuild the darn RAID 3.

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Hawkeye

[arthurleung]

By the look of it, you had a 4-Disk RAID5 (1.09TB) then one drive failed, you plug in another 400GB in the 5th port and tried to rebuild? If that is the case, your array had a small glitch and was infact not broken. That wouldn't have been a problem, but the fact is you DELETED the original array and CREATED a new array which of course is not the same size.

Nevertheless, please tell us if you had 4x400 or 5x400 to start with? The situation (and the solution) would be completely different depend on it.

For the time being, do not touch the array (that including the hardware) as that would make it worse.

On the other hand, If you want to be really safe, shell out and buy a couple of 400/500GB external harddrives (4 or 5 depends on what you had) just to make a backup copy before you try and fix the array. Or visit a data-recovery company which will deal with all the stuff for you

Fixing a RAID3 is not as easy as fixing a RAID0/1.

[Hawkeyes]

By the look of it, you had a 4-Disk RAID5 (1.09TB) then one drive failed, you plug in another 400GB in the 5th port and tried to rebuild? If that is the case, your array had a small glitch and was infact not broken. That wouldn't have been a problem, but the fact is you DELETED the original array and CREATED a new array which of course is not the same size.

Nevertheless, please tell us if you had 4x400 or 5x400 to start with? The situation (and the solution) would be completely different depend on it.

For the time being, do not touch the array (that including the hardware) as that would make it worse.

On the other hand, If you want to be really safe, shell out and buy a couple of 400/500GB external harddrives (4 or 5 depends on what you had) just to make a backup copy before you try and fix the array. Or visit a data-recovery company which will deal with all the stuff for you

Fixing a RAID3 is not as easy as fixing a RAID0/1.

arthurleung,

Thanks for the reply. To answer your first question, I had a 5x400gb RAID3 array to start with. All 5 drives started out as new Western Digital 400GB SATA.

The original warning stated that one of the 5 drives failed. At that point I could still access the RAID3 array, but it was slow and unprotected (i.e. if I lost another drive, all data was gone). That is when I went into the SyncRAID Utility that came with the RAID card and determined which drive was bad.

I shut down, replaced it with a Hitachi 400gb drive which I had previously reformatted. During reboot when the the NetcellRAID bios came up, I hit ctrl/n I entered. The RAID array showed up as a 4-drive RAID3, plus a 5th drive (the Hitachi) showing as UNASSIGNED. When I tried REBUILD, I got an error stating the 4-drive array was fine & could not rebuild.

One step I left out of the original post is that at the above point I got out of Netcell bios & continued boot sequence. When Windows came up I tried to access the RAID3 array (drive J, but got the window "The disk in drive J is not formatted". I didn't go any farther, but instead rebooted to get back into the Netcell bios & see if i had missed anything.

What can I try now? The restoration companies are EXPENSIVE - hate to have to do it if there is another way. Is my data gone?

Thanks for your help...
Hawkeyes

[Hawkeyes]

Can anyone suggest a solution?

Thanks,
Hawk

[Lucio]

Unfortunately, no, you deleted your RAID array and lost your data, it's as simple as that I'm afraid.

If you'd not deleted your array someone might have been able to talk you into how to add a replacement drive properly. The chances of ressambling the data from a RAID array with anything other than some highly advanced disc reconstruction software is slim to none.


Personally, I only tolerate a RAID array at work because I've spent time practicing on how to replace a failed disc correctly (shut down, add drive to system, assign drive to array, rebuild array, wait 36 hours or longer!)

[arthurleung]

RAID5 should be relatively simple to repair, but RAID3 is not as common. I really don't have a solution for you.

Lucio, array rebuild doesn't take that long (proper raid card). Mine only took 3 hours to rebuild 4x300G array (Seagate 7200.9 300G)

[peterb]

A data recovery specialist may be able to get the data off the disk - you have re-initialised the array metadata, and the existing file structure. A specialist may be able to reconstruct the array, or get the raw binary off the disk. The latter is time consuming = expensive.

[Lucio]

Lucio, array rebuild doesn't take that long (proper raid card). Mine only took 3 hours to rebuild 4x300G array (Seagate 7200.9 300G)

Sorry basing the timings off the stuff I've been learning with, HP 512MB controller and a stack of 146GB SAS drives filled with as much data as I could copy onto them.

[shamunda]

was this problem ever solved? If so how, and what did you use...I'm running into the same problem...slightly different (didn't delete the array), but similar none-the-less.

[peterb]

was this problem ever solved? If so how, and what did you use...I'm running into the same problem...slightly different (didn't delete the array), but similar none-the-less.

And the problem is....?

[Hawkeyes]

was this problem ever solved? If so how, and what did you use...I'm running into the same problem...slightly different (didn't delete the array), but similar none-the-less.

Shamunda,

No, not solved. I have not touched the drives or attempted any other reconstruction as I had hoped for a solution online but no such luck. Normally the Netcell bios will warn you if something you are about to do is going to erase all your data - I have had that warning come up in the past. When I deleted the array and added the new drive, I did not get a warning of any type - so I thought I was OK. I dont know if my data is still intact but I dont know how to access it, or if it is 'gone'.

Hope u have a better experience.

Hawk

[Hawkeyes]

And the problem is....?

peterb;

Here's the synopsis...

I lost a drive on my 5-port Netcell RAID array (RAID 3). It is a 5x400gb RAID3, all 5 drives were new Western Digital 400GB SATA.

I could still access the data, but was warned if another drive failed I'd lose it all. It's an XFX Revo 64 5-Port PCI card, Firmware v1.5.3.5. Box is built with ASUS mobo, AMD 64 cpu, 1g corsair ram, running WinXP pro. System has been stable 2 years.

Netcell is out of business, but the manual tells me to shut down, replace bad drive, reboot, enter the Netcell bios (ctrl/n), enter number corresponding to REBUILD, save changes, continue with boot. Said the RAID array would be useable while rebuilding, but not protected. That's what I did, replaced the bad drive with a Hitachi 400g.

Problem is that when I tried REBUILD ARRAY, Netcell Bios said there is nothing wrong with the RAID array. It showed a 4-drive RAID 3 as being OK, with one additional drive (Hitachi) unassigned.

I tried CREATE ARRAY on the 5th drive (Hitachi) & got a one drive array. So I did a DELETE ARRAY,which did not wipe out any data on the 5th drive (Hitachi) array.

I got out of Netcell bios & continued boot sequence. When Windows came up I tried to access the RAID3 array (drive J), but got the window "The disk in drive J is not formatted". I didn't go any farther, but instead rebooted to get back into the Netcell bios & see if I had missed anything.

I then deleted the 4-drive RAID 3 & created & saved a 5 drive RAID 3, which now included the Hitachi drive.

I got out of Netcell bios, continued boot. When Windows came up I went into the SyncRAID Utility (comes with the NetCell card) & checked the array. It shows a 5-drive RAID 3 array, 1490.44GB, says it is working & ARRAY PROTECTED. OK, so far so good.

I then tried to access the RAID 3 array thru both the shortcut and My Computer (drive J), but got a window stating 'The disk in drive J is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?' I clicked yes & the new window showed a 1.09TB capacity. Freaking out, I stopped, exited & went to Admin Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management. Disk Management shows drive K having 2 partitions, one with 1118.26GB Healthy (Active), the other with 372.19GB Unallocated.

I have done nothing with it since. I did pull the REVO PCI card to be safe. Still no answers & I need a clear weekend to have enough time to fool with it.

Hawk

[peterb]

Hawkeyes - got the drift of your problem - it was shamunda's I was asking about

However, I did stumble across this software while researching another issue

Data Recovery Software - Hard Drive Recovery - RAID Data Recovery

I haven't used it myself though. A Google search on Raid recovery software gave some other links too.