Help Raid1 drives fail in sys to sys move Win10

STBEngineer

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2016
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Issue:
Failure of Two 1GB HDD drives, Mirrored-RAID1, using Win7x32 Disk Management, 1GB on OC’d system were removed from system after Boot drive failed, and reinstalled on the same system, after new SSD and Win10x64 was installed. Win10x64 Disk Management has marked the drives as dynamic, online, and failed after Import Foreign Disks command.

Minimum Goal for Success:
Reattach One of the two drives to have access to the Data files in both partitions that existed on the Mirrors.

Initial System Configuration when the drives were mirrored in 2011:
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, Q9400, OC’d to 3.2G with FSB=400Mhz and some voltages modified. C: drive were two 36GB Raptors in Raid0 using ACH10 Intel Raid controller. Windows 7x32. All drives SATA interface.

Current Configuration with the drives not accessible:
Asus P5Q Pro Turbo, Q9400, Default BIOS. C: drive changed to SSD Samsung 850 Pro 240MB. New Win10x64. All drives installed on same SATA interface as before.

Possible Actions that contributed to the Issue:
The Initial system failed and would not restart into BIOS. Following checklist, system was restored with a reset of the CMOS, battery was also replaced. I then worked on the OC’ing to bring the CPU speed up when the system failed again. This time the RAID0 ACH10 C: drives were not recoverable. I found several posts on restoring the Raid0 and ACH10 which required use of “TestDisk”. I was not successful. The RAID1 drives were removed from the system without following the disconnect procedure. I decided having an SSD and Winx64 would be better as it would (1) Increase C: from 72G to 240G (2) Faster – Wow – its fast (3) x64 will allow me to grow memory from 4 to 8GB, (4) I have backups on the mirror drive to recover all desktop and C: files

Status:
The drives were attached via original SATA cables. Win10x64 recognized both the Drives as Foreign. “Import Foreign” was executed. Drives are shown as “Dynamic” “Online” and partitions are marked “Failed”. Rescan and other commands do not seem to work. The drives are shown with red bar indicating Mirrored. Unusually, the drives do not show the same partitions. Drive 0 has two partition, Drive 1 has three partitions. The shown size of Drv0Prt0 = Drv1Prt0 + Drv1Prt1. Drv0Prt2 = Drv1Prtr3 in size.

“TestDisk” was used to view the drives. I have found all the data, but sometimes I have to use the deepscan to find it. I am careful NOT to execute any write functions as I am not clear what the heck I would be doing. TestDisk seems to show the same partition count matching what Windows Disk Management is showing.

I even found two posts on using HEXEDIT to change a single byte on the file data so it would change from dynamic to basic and I could attach a single drive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EZXceqY4hU

I don’t want to risk the data yet but I can execute this with ease. My skill set is degreed computer engineer but not in the PC field – Video and Telecom. Thanks!
 

STBEngineer

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2016
4
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Hi Elixer, Thank you for the post of the Intel Raid volume recovery procedures. It has a strong message that it only applies to three Intel products, the SRCU21, SCRCU31, and SCRU31L. Also, the names and menu actions shown from a boot perspective do not match at all the ICH10 Intel Raid control software built into the motherboard. Thanks for this new information. -Cliff
 

Elixer

Lifer
May 7, 2002
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I am curious, if you revert back to win 7, would it still work there?
Or is this not an option anymore?

I suppose you could also clone over one of those to another HD, and then allow testdisk to write to that drive, while you play around trying to get RAID 1 working again?
 

STBEngineer

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2016
4
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Hi Elixer, I tried initially with my new SSD to load my legal copy of Win7 (OEM) to start with and it would not load. I then moved forward to a new copy of Win10x64 which I wanted anyway. I had the same issue with Win10 loading, and it was because I needed to remove all drive connections except the SSD, then it worked. So going backward's now would be difficult. I have a hard time believing that win7x32 to win10x64 through disk management would be an issue.

Now, your idea of a block level clone to another drive, then work with that one as a test drive is really good. One of the mirror drives looks correct to me on FAT and data, while the second one seems to have lost the FAT?? or partition? but has the files on deepscan. I am going to think on whether to reformate that drive, and use it as the test. I could also try to recover it first and if It fails then i execute the block copy. I can also search ebay for a 1GB hitachi clone used and buy it to work with.

Do block level clones of a drive account somehow for bad sectors on the destination drive? Does anyone know the answer to this or have comments? thx cliff
 

STBEngineer

Junior Member
Feb 12, 2016
4
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0
All, Thanks for reading - I did solve the issue with TestDisk and recovered all of the files. I never got the disk to reattach. Thanks!