Replacing Failed RAID 1 Drive

[owensdj]

I need to replace a failed drive in a Dell XPS that has two SATA drives connected to the motherboard in a RAID 1 array. It uses the Intel 82801ER onboard SATA RAID controller. The primary drive(SATA drive 0) has failed but Windows XP is still working fine.

Do I just take out the failed drive and replace it with the new one?

 

[corkyg]

It is more complicated than that. You have all the data from the array on that one drive. (take care of it) You need to back that up to another drive, then you have to put in the new drive and rebuild the RAID 1 array. When that is done and it can be seen, then restore your back up to the array and you are back in business.

 

[alyarb]

that's pretty lame. i'm glad i stick to RAID 0. the controller should be "hey what's this? a new drive that is the same size of this broken RAID array? serendipitous! shall i rebuild y/n?"

that you have to clone the drive yourself is pretty dumb.

 

[Paperdoc]

Well, I agree with corkyg's recommendation to back up right away to be safe, but you should NOT need to restore the array data after it is rebuilt. The RAID systems I've seen do exactly what alyarb anticipates. Once you install (physically) the new replacement drive you follow the boot screen prompts to enter the RAID management screens. There you add the new drive to the failed array and tell it to rebuild it. "Rebuild" INCLUDES making a complete copy of all data from the older good drive to the new one so that the array is completely restored. That painless recovery and rebuild from one failed drive is the advantage of RAID1 over RAID0.

In buying the replacement drive, choose one that is exactly the same size as the old one, or a little bigger. It MUST make the new array member the same size as the other. Although it MIGHT be possible to use a much larger drive and create a non-RAID Partition in the Unallocated Space it leaves, I really don't think that is a good idea. So waste as little space as possible and make the new one at least only slightly larger, if not an exact match.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Paperdoc
Well, I agree with corkyg's recommendation to back up right away to be safe, but you should NOT need to restore the array data after it is rebuilt. The RAID systems I've seen do exactly what alyarb anticipates. Once you install (physically) the new replacement drive you follow the boot screen prompts to enter the RAID management screens. There you add the new drive to the failed array and tell it to rebuild it. "Rebuild" INCLUDES making a complete copy of all data from the older good drive to the new one so that the array is completely restored. That painless recovery and rebuild from one failed drive is the advantage of RAID1 over RAID0.

This.

Asus instructions for rebuilding an ICH5R RAID 1 array on page 8.