Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® RST, RAID
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Did I just lose 3 TB of data? HELP!

LThom8
Beginner
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I have a Dell XPS 8700 (3? 4? years old) with Intel RST built into the BIOS. I'm running Win 7 / 64. I have a three-drive RAID 5 array.

One of the drives died, so I bought a replacement and plugged it in. In the BIOS utility, it recognized the new drive, changed the array's status from "degraded" to "repair", and said the rebuild would happen in the OS.

When I booted Windows, I didn't see any Intel software, so I figured I lost something when I installed Windows, and I installed the latest version of RST from Intel's website. Along the way, I think it updated the driver (not sure what the previous version was).

It spent about 12 hours rebuilding the array, and now ut seems to think it's OK, but when I go to access the drive, Windows says it's corrupt, and wants me to run fdisk. I did (read-only), and it reported a BUNCH of errors. When I rebooted and checked the array's status in the BIOS, it says "normal" again.

Can I un-do something from my install to "put things right", or did it kill the data on the remaining two good drives in the process of the rebuild?

I'm really in a panic now, because I had this data on a RAID drive FOR fault tolerance -- most of this is not backed up, because I was counting on the array to give me a safety net.

HELP

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idata
Employee
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Hello LGT,

 

 

Thank you for contacting Intel® technical support. I will be more than happy to help you.

 

 

I understand that you are having issues with corrupt data in your RAID array.

 

 

Since Intel® RST shows that the RAID 5 array is "Normal," then there is no issues with the RAID volume. Since Windows® is telling you that the data is corrupt, I would recommend you to run a Startup Repair with the Windows® 7 installation disc. You can find instructions in the next link: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-perform-a-startup-repair-in-windows-7-2626170

 

 

Please be aware that the content on that site is not controlled by Intel®. This information is offered for your convenience and should not be viewed as an endorsement by Intel® for the merchants or services offered there.

 

 

In the event that the Startup Repair tool does not work, you should be able to access and retrieve the data from a working operating system. You can either take the drives and connect them to a computer with a Windows®, or add an extra drive to your computer and install Windows® in it, and this way you can access the drives and copy your data to another location.

 

 

Regards,

 

 

Xavier A.
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idata
Employee
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Hello LGT,

 

 

I was checking your case and would like to know if you need further assistance. If so, please do not hesitate in replying back.

 

 

Regards,

 

 

Xavier A.
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LThom8
Beginner
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Wellll... still working on it.

I don't HAVE an extra huge drive to offload everything to, so I'm using a bunch of 320 GB drives I happened to have lying around. The only problem is that I'm out of SATA connections, so I'm attempting backups (using Recuva from piriform) over a USB-to-SATA interface -- it's taking a LONG time to move 3 TB over USB!

To further complicate things, I'm getting intermittent errors from one of the drives -- one day all three show up as "good", but the array needs to be rebuilt, the next, it shows one of the drives as "missing" and the array "degraded". Then in the Intel UI, they all show as good, but rebuilding. As I'm making my backups, it may run for a few hours and then hang up. At that point, I have to reboot, and Windows wants to run CHKDSK on the array (I don't want it to write to the array, so I'm stopping that, and letting Recuva scour the drive instead). That whole reboot-and-pick-up-where-it-left-off cycle is also stealing a lot of time. It also seems to reset the "rebuilding the array" progress to zero. It hasn't stayed up long enough to think it has rebuilt the whole array YET.

I'm trying to get everything copied off of the array first. Then, I plan to take the drives, one at a time, and run drive diagnostics from the manufacturer. I knew I had one bad drive and replaced it. It seems quite coincidental that a second drive has failed days after replacing one of the others, but I can't rule it out.

Bottom line -- still making backups of what I can salvage, and then to gather more clues. This ran flawlessly for 4 years (until that doggone first drive failed) -- I just have to find the root cause of the problem at hand.

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idata
Employee
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Hello LGT,

 

 

I am very sorry to see about all this process that is consuming a lot of time for you. I hope that you are able to recover your data.

 

 

Please, post back with any update to know the results.

 

 

Regards,

 

 

Xavier A.
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