RAID 1 problem, IDE ATA, Highpoint drivers

[Lars Brink [2650]]

Hi,

I have an integrated Highpoint ATA RAID controller on my Abit Kt7a-RAID
motherboard.

I have installed the lastest unofficial bios with drivers 2.34 and the same
driver in Windows XP.

I made a RAID 1 setup with 2 identical IBM 45GB HDs but the raid wont copy
to make the mirror. I have an error on the 2nd disk so that the coping never
finishes and now I get an error when booting that the raid is not fault
tollerant and if I want to copy it now.

Problem:
1) I cannot copy the raid due to the faulty disk
2) I cannot undo the RAID so that the disk is free of the RAID setup
3) I cannot buy a new disk with the same configuration (money, out of stock
etc.)

I would like to know if I can just disconnect the cable to the 2nd disk and
then the raid will be undone and I have a normal bootdisk without raid?

Greeetings from Denmark,

Lars Brink

 

[Dave Hau]

Hi,

I have an integrated Highpoint ATA RAID controller on my Abit Kt7a-RAID
motherboard.

I have installed the lastest unofficial bios with drivers 2.34 and the same
driver in Windows XP.

I made a RAID 1 setup with 2 identical IBM 45GB HDs but the raid wont copy
to make the mirror. I have an error on the 2nd disk so that the coping never
finishes and now I get an error when booting that the raid is not fault
tollerant and if I want to copy it now.

Problem:
1) I cannot copy the raid due to the faulty disk
2) I cannot undo the RAID so that the disk is free of the RAID setup
3) I cannot buy a new disk with the same configuration (money, out of stock
etc.)

I would like to know if I can just disconnect the cable to the 2nd disk and
then the raid will be undone and I have a normal bootdisk without raid?

Greeetings from Denmark,

Lars Brink

Boot the machine, enter the RAID controller menu (IIRC, press ctrl-H),
delete the RAID 1 array, set the good (functioning) drive to be the boot
drive (within the RAID controller menu), then reboot.

HTH,
Dave

 

[Lars Brink [2650]]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply.

Boot the machine, enter the RAID controller menu (IIRC, press ctrl-H),
delete the RAID 1 array, set the good (functioning) drive to be the boot
drive (within the RAID controller menu), then reboot.

I can get into the menu but I cannot delete the RAID without it saying that
I will loose all the data in the raid and I'm afraid to reply that with
"Yes".

The functioning drive is the boot drive at the moment. The raid was never
replicated due to a faulty disk #2.

Regards,

Lars

 

[Dave Hau]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply.




I can get into the menu but I cannot delete the RAID without it saying that
I will loose all the data in the raid and I'm afraid to reply that with
"Yes".

That's interesting. My guess is that it's a bug in the firmware.
They're using the same message handling routine for all RAID configs, be
it RAID 0, 1, 1+0 or 5. The warning message makes sense when you delete
RAID 0 or 5 arrays, but not 1 or 1+0, since the whole point of mirroring
is so that you can failover to another device when the first device fails.

I know that the RAID config meta data resides on the hard disk itself,
because I've moved a RAID 0 array from one Highpoint controller to
another (on another machine), and it recognizes the RAID array
instantly. So the meta data cannot be stored in the bios. So for RAID
1 array, I would assume all deleting an array does is to delete the meta
data on the hard disk that indicates that it's part of a RAID 1 array.

I suggest you email or call Highpoint and ask them if deleting the array
in your case is okay. Very likely, it'll be okay.

HTH,
Dave

 

[Lars Brink [2650]]

Hi Dave,

I know that the RAID config meta data resides on the hard disk itself,
because I've moved a RAID 0 array from one Highpoint controller to
another (on another machine), and it recognizes the RAID array
instantly. So the meta data cannot be stored in the bios. So for RAID
1 array, I would assume all deleting an array does is to delete the meta
data on the hard disk that indicates that it's part of a RAID 1 array.

Sounds right!

I suggest you email or call Highpoint and ask them if deleting the array
in your case is okay. Very likely, it'll be okay.

I was an controller on an Abit board so what I did was to make the raid fail
by taking the power from the secondary drive and then dissolve the raid when
booting next time.

Thanks for your time and suggestions!

Greetings from Denmark,

Lars