View Full Version : RAID Volume 0 is failing.. ?
My RAID Volume 0 is failing.. I have no idea what this is, i checked on Intel and it says that if it said it was missing it would be fixable, but if it says has "Failed". It has to be deleted..
But I have two RAIDīs, one is Volume 1 and then the failing one Volume 0, and Vol 1 works fine. But the names of them both are the same WDC...(something) My only guess is that this refers to my External Hard Drive, because it has 500 gb and is a Western Digital, and when I check the information in the Intel(R) Matrix Storage Console, it says that the RAID Volume 0, has 465 gb (500 GB).. But as there are two Volumes, does this refer to my main Hard Drive? (C:) Is it because it has been devided in to two? Because my main Hard Drive has 1 TB.. ?
I really donīt wanna go deleting any raids and reinstalling, if this will make me have to reinstall my entire OS.
Or is it not that bad deleting a RAID?
Help needed ASAP !
PS. Should I be carefull entering any data on my hard drives, now that there is a failure in a RAID? I donīt wanna loose anything!
Do you know the drive letter of the failing drive? Volume 0 normally means the first drive that the PC detects, but if the hard drives inside your PC are not WD (Western Digital) then it's probably your external hard drive. If your PC uses 2 WD drives in RAID0, it would mean that there are 2x 500GB drives making the 1TB volume you can see, and one of them could be failing.
Some of the newer Western Digital external drives have a built in RAID1 so it could be one of the 500GB drives in that.
No I donīt know the letter, but I read some more information about the drive with the error, and it says "Device Port Location: External". So itīs my 500 GB WD Hard Drive, but I can enter the drive. I could even play movies and what else I have on it.
Now iīve started a... What do you call it in english? (Danish Windows) Itīs looking for errors on the drive, and Iīve set it to fix any eventual bugs it finds.
Itīs checking all the sectors of the drive, this will take forever.
But, I only have one external, and it says the same about Volume 1, that it is an external.
So guessing this is one of the new Western Digital external drives with the RAID 1, even though I have no idea what a RAID is.
EDIT: Now iīm confused, it says "Device Port Location: External". To everything, even my CD-Rom.. So now Iīm even more confused.
OFERIKOLA
17-11-2009, 19:27
can you disconnect it?
if so, does the problame comtinues?
I disconnected it, and it still says that there is a failure in Volume 0, so guess this is on my main hard drive, but I didnīt know that the main hard drive was split up..
It says 465 GB, and the same with the other, but it doesnīt add up to the 1 TB drive.
I know that when looking at how much space a hdd hsa, it always says less, but 465+465 = 930 GB. When I look at my main Hard drive it says it has 918 GB.
Hope Hornet can comment on this, he usually knows these kinds of things.
I do have warranty on this computer, so I can put it in on the workshop, but with the challenge coming up this saturday, I doubt iīll get it back in time.
OFERIKOLA
18-11-2009, 08:51
If I want to check my hard drives on XP, that`s what I do :
right hand click on "My Computer" then "Computer managment", and inside that you will have "Disk Managment", and there you will see what Hard drive are connected and which drive letter is each.
It sounds as though maybe your PC has a RAID 0 setup.
That is where 2 hard drives of the same size are setup so that they look like 1 big hard drive. Everything on your PC is split up between the 2 drives which makes the PC quicker that just 1 drive, because it accesses data on both hard drives at once.
The problem with that is if one drive fails, the other only has half the data for everything on it. If the failed drive can't be recovered, you'll have to replace it and reinstall the OS.
I'm slightly confused about this.
If you have a failing RAID 0 and this 'fails' then you will lose all data and you will only be able to recover
the data via a very good data recovery program with RAID support which can be a pain.
While you are waiting for a fix or a failure, kharak you need to start backing up any media etc straight away.
backup to your external drive or elsewhere.
Its highly likely this RAID 0 will fail completely sooner rather than later, which will mean a fresh install of your OS and all data lost/unreadable.
I'm confused about your drives. Can you give us some accurate info on what drives you have m8?
If you cannot tell via windows then look in your BIOS or literally take the cover off your PC
and look in there, also what OS are you using and have you recently 'upgraded' to W7, if so what OS did you upgrade from?
RAID 0 is terribly unreliable and you are over 4 times likely to suffer from data loss etc.
If you don't need a performance boost (RAID 0) and would rather the reliability then lose this RAID 0 before fresh install.
I figure you have two 500gb drives in RAID 0 and an external drive, so you can install your OS on one of the 500's,
have the 2nd 500gb drive for storage along with your external drive, sorry for this bad news Kharak but you will need to
reinstall your OS soon as this RAID will likely be unreliable even following a potential fix.
I was just down at the store, where I bought the computer. I talked to a computer guy there, and he explained it to me.
As Rozonus said: They work in order to make 2 drives in to one.
So technically I have 3 hdd connected to this computer. But only shows 2, because I have one 1 TB (2 RAIDīs) and one External.
Anyways, Iīll start backuping everything now.
Iīll put the computer in on the workshop on Monday, because I have a challenge on saturday.. Iīve been waiting for this for a long time, so iīm risking it.
Anyways warranty will cover the computer.
When I was talking to the computer guy, I also decided to buy a solid state drive, for my computer, so when I get the new hdd, I will install the OS on the SSD for better performance, and use the 1 tb, for storage :)
I run Windows Vista (64bit) btw.
Kharak, have a quick read here m8 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Quoted from Wikipedia :quote:
Specifically RAID 0 :
"Striped set without parity" or "Striping". Provides improved performance and additional storage but no redundancy or fault tolerance. Because there is no redundancy, this level is not actually a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, i.e. not true RAID. However, because of the similarities to RAID (especially the need for a controller to distribute data across multiple disks), simple stripe sets are normally referred to as RAID 0. Any disk failure destroys the array, which has greater consequences with more disks in the array (at a minimum, catastrophic data loss is twice as severe compared to single drives without RAID). A single disk failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into fragments. The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the array. The fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, increasing bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is unrecoverable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss
Kharak, have a quick read here m8 : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
Quoted from Wikipedia :quote:
Specifically RAID 0 :
"Striped set without parity" or "Striping". Provides improved performance and additional storage but no redundancy or fault tolerance. Because there is no redundancy, this level is not actually a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks, i.e. not true RAID. However, because of the similarities to RAID (especially the need for a controller to distribute data across multiple disks), simple stripe sets are normally referred to as RAID 0. Any disk failure destroys the array, which has greater consequences with more disks in the array (at a minimum, catastrophic data loss is twice as severe compared to single drives without RAID). A single disk failure destroys the entire array because when data is written to a RAID 0 drive, the data is broken into fragments. The number of fragments is dictated by the number of disks in the array. The fragments are written to their respective disks simultaneously on the same sector. This allows smaller sections of the entire chunk of data to be read off the drive in parallel, increasing bandwidth. RAID 0 does not implement error checking so any error is unrecoverable. More disks in the array means higher bandwidth, but greater risk of data loss
Guess iīll Buy two RAID 4 wayīs next time, then iīll just make backups of them ;)
The computer guy recommended that I mirrored the hard drive.. But he said at the same time, that if one Volume Fails, all will fail, as the information is devided... So I donīt get what he meant about that.