New Disk Signature - Loose data?

[Guest]

I have a SCSI disk drive that was part of a mirror RAID1 set on our Windows
2000 Server. Well I rebooted the other day, and the Raid system marks it as
‘Failed.’ The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
‘failed. I put the drive in an old Dell Power Edge 2300. And the RAID
controller picks it up fine. So I activate it, and boot into NT 4.0 server.

It asks if I want to write a Disk Signature to the drive. Should I? I’m
worried if I do this, it will wipe out the MBR and/or Data from the Windows
2000 server setup. Is there a risk doing this? I just want to see if the
data is still there from the Win2000 server.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have a SCSI disk drive that was part of a mirror RAID1 set on our Windows
2000 Server. Well I rebooted the other day, and the Raid system marks it as
'Failed.' The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
'failed. I put the drive in an old Dell Power Edge 2300. And the RAID
controller picks it up fine. So I activate it, and boot into NT 4.0 server.

It asks if I want to write a Disk Signature to the drive. Should I? I'm
worried if I do this, it will wipe out the MBR and/or Data from the Windows
2000 server setup. Is there a risk doing this? I just want to see if the
data is still there from the Win2000 server.

If your OS wants to write a signature on the disk then it does
not recognise it as having a valid file system. Don't let it do it
but attempt to retrieve its data without modifying the disk in any
way.

You write "The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
failed." This is not the way it works. Disks have a certain failure
probability and they can fail at any time, even though that probability
increases over time. Furthermore I don't think this is a mechanical
failure but rather a logical failure: The platter surfaces are intact
but the file system may be corrupted.

 

[Dave Patrick]

And by all means don't just reinstall it and kick it back online. Run the
manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive. Then at the very least rebuild the
array.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| If your OS wants to write a signature on the disk then it does
| not recognise it as having a valid file system. Don't let it do it
| but attempt to retrieve its data without modifying the disk in any
| way.
|
| You write "The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
| failed." This is not the way it works. Disks have a certain failure
| probability and they can fail at any time, even though that probability
| increases over time. Furthermore I don't think this is a mechanical
| failure but rather a logical failure: The platter surfaces are intact
| but the file system may be corrupted.
|
|