I give up on RAID
in [Asus]
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From: Bill Anderson on 27 Jun 2010 12:39 Well, it was a fun experiment while it lasted (all of two weeks). I have four physical drives in my system. Three of them are 1.5TB drives and about two weeks ago I tied them together into a single 4.5TB RAID 0 (striped) set which I partitioned for storage of various types of data. The fourth physical drive is my boot drive where I put my operating systems (Win7 32 bit and Win7 64 bit). It was not part of the RAID set. Then last night I merely updated the video drivers in the Win7 64 bit setup and when the system rebooted, well, it wouldn't reboot. I'd get the Windows bootloader and I'd choose an OS and the little colored fireflies would begin to appear but then the system would freeze. After a bit of sleuthing I discovered that one of the three drives in the 4.5TB RAID set was now "non-RAID." Basically I was screwed. Fortunately I had nearly everything backed up -- I lost a couple of weeks of emails and some other minor things, but nothing important I can't recover with a little work. I wish I knew what caused the RAID set to come apart. Not only had the one drive (not the other two) become non-RAID, but BIOS had changed a bit too. BIOS no longer was set so that I could boot by pressing the spacebar -- I had to turn that back on -- and the system (ASUS P5Q Pro Turbo) was now trying to start with Express Gate -- I had to turn that off -- and a few other things had changed too: most interestingly, the J-MICRON eSATA/PATA controller had been turned back on. I'd learned it had to be turned off in order for me to get to the RAID setup. I think the problem was not the drive that had become non-RAID. I think the hiccup was in BIOS. But wherever the hiccup was, I learned my lesson. No more putting all my eggs in one 4.5TB striped basket. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog
From: Paul on 27 Jun 2010 13:28 Bill Anderson wrote: > Well, it was a fun experiment while it lasted (all of two weeks). > > I have four physical drives in my system. Three of them are 1.5TB > drives and about two weeks ago I tied them together into a single 4.5TB > RAID 0 (striped) set which I partitioned for storage of various types of > data. The fourth physical drive is my boot drive where I put my > operating systems (Win7 32 bit and Win7 64 bit). It was not part of the > RAID set. > > Then last night I merely updated the video drivers in the Win7 64 bit > setup and when the system rebooted, well, it wouldn't reboot. I'd get > the Windows bootloader and I'd choose an OS and the little colored > fireflies would begin to appear but then the system would freeze. > > After a bit of sleuthing I discovered that one of the three drives in > the 4.5TB RAID set was now "non-RAID." Basically I was screwed. > Fortunately I had nearly everything backed up -- I lost a couple of > weeks of emails and some other minor things, but nothing important I > can't recover with a little work. > > I wish I knew what caused the RAID set to come apart. Not only had the > one drive (not the other two) become non-RAID, but BIOS had changed a > bit too. BIOS no longer was set so that I could boot by pressing the > spacebar -- I had to turn that back on -- and the system (ASUS P5Q Pro > Turbo) was now trying to start with Express Gate -- I had to turn that > off -- and a few other things had changed too: most interestingly, the > J-MICRON eSATA/PATA controller had been turned back on. I'd learned it > had to be turned off in order for me to get to the RAID setup. > > I think the problem was not the drive that had become non-RAID. I think > the hiccup was in BIOS. > > But wherever the hiccup was, I learned my lesson. No more putting all > my eggs in one 4.5TB striped basket. > The Asus BIOS has the option of "recovering from overclock", and it doesn't necessarily take overclocking to trigger it. If the BIOS thinks the computer crashed during the last session, it assumes the reason was overclocking. It resets the BIOS to defaults. On my P4C800-E Deluxe, I'd discover my Promise controller was turned on, after I'd specifically left it turned off. On was the default value. That's how I could tell it happened. Some other BIOS designers, only reset a few of the settings, like returning DRAM settings to defaults and setting CPU clock to defaults. But as far as I can remember, on my old board, it was other stuff as well, like turning my Promise controller back on, enabling the Firewire I'd turned off and so on. Very annoying. I don't know what happened to your stripe. Is there an option to delete the array, and then create the array again ? Sometimes, you can do that with certain array types, without losing anything. In a stripe, the same disk would have to occupy the same relative position, so the stripes would be in the right order, but other than that, if you used automatic settings before, then it should put it back the same way. It helps to practice this stuff, before there is data on the array, because then you know whether a certain choice in the RAID setup screen is destructive or not. The roles of the disks, should be defined by the metadata written near the end of the disk. There is a 64KB chunk up near the end of the disk, that tells the RAID BIOS module, which disk is which in the array. I'm not buying that the metadata got erased. That's too spooky. Instead, the first place I'd look, is the BIOS and see if there is a setting that determines which port(s) are under RAID control. Maybe the controller driving that disk, is set to IDE again, instead of AHCI/RAID ? So even that could be a BIOS setting. I'd rather believe that, than believe the metadata just disappeared. Paul
From: John Carter on 27 Jun 2010 14:34 Bill Anderson <billanderson601(a)yahoo.com> wrote in news:XZWdnWVxxYoi47rRnZ2dnUVZ_hadnZ2d(a)giganews.com: > Well, it was a fun experiment while it lasted (all of two weeks). > > I have four physical drives in my system. Three of them are 1.5TB > drives and about two weeks ago I tied them together into a single > 4.5TB RAID 0 (striped) set which I partitioned for storage of > various types of data. The fourth physical drive is my boot drive > where I put my operating systems (Win7 32 bit and Win7 64 bit). It > was not part of the RAID set. > > Then last night I merely updated the video drivers in the Win7 64 > bit setup and when the system rebooted, well, it wouldn't reboot. > I'd get the Windows bootloader and I'd choose an OS and the little > colored fireflies would begin to appear but then the system would > freeze. > ><<<<<<snip>>>>> Were you havung problems with your video card ? Why did you not consider the video driver update to have contributed to the problem ? "A doctor fell into a well and broke his collarbone. But a doctor should attend the sick and leave the well lone." This was the leading paragraph of an executive memo sent out to all employees in the field (those not directly administered by an IT group) of my wife's company. If anyone unilaterally decided to alter their computer or software for reasons other than to fix a problem, they would be subject to termination. (several other "rules" were spelled out, among them, no permission would be given to anyone wanting to use RAID 0 (striping). Only RAID 1 (mirroring) will be permitted on any corporate computer. Even then, a strong case needed to be made. It seems harsh, but their reasoning was that too many man hours has bee wasted by the employee, as well as the central IT tech support group in restoring field employees' computers back to useable state. This for the OP to share how my wife's company dealt with similar problems - they eliminzted the source of the problems.
From: Bill Anderson on 27 Jun 2010 21:45 On 6/27/2010 2:34 PM, John Carter wrote: > Bill Anderson<billanderson601(a)yahoo.com> wrote in > news:XZWdnWVxxYoi47rRnZ2dnUVZ_hadnZ2d(a)giganews.com: > >> Well, it was a fun experiment while it lasted (all of two weeks). >> >> I have four physical drives in my system. Three of them are 1.5TB >> drives and about two weeks ago I tied them together into a single >> 4.5TB RAID 0 (striped) set which I partitioned for storage of >> various types of data. The fourth physical drive is my boot drive >> where I put my operating systems (Win7 32 bit and Win7 64 bit). It >> was not part of the RAID set. >> >> Then last night I merely updated the video drivers in the Win7 64 >> bit setup and when the system rebooted, well, it wouldn't reboot. >> I'd get the Windows bootloader and I'd choose an OS and the little >> colored fireflies would begin to appear but then the system would >> freeze. >> >> <<<<<<snip>>>>> > > Were you havung problems with your video card ? Not really. I was in the process of installing Windows 7 64-bit and I hadn't installed the ATI drivers yet. > > Why did you not consider the video driver update to have > contributed to the problem ? Because the problem hit at boot before the OS and its drivers could load. > > "A doctor fell into a well and broke his collarbone. > But a doctor should attend the sick and leave the well lone." > > This was the leading paragraph of an executive memo sent out to all > employees in the field (those not directly administered by an IT group) > of my wife's company. > > If anyone unilaterally decided to alter their computer or software for > reasons other than to fix a problem, they would be subject to > termination. (several other "rules" were spelled out, among them, no > permission would be given to anyone wanting to use RAID 0 (striping). > Only RAID 1 (mirroring) will be permitted on any corporate computer. > Even then, a strong case needed to be made. > > It seems harsh, but their reasoning was that too many man hours has bee > wasted by the employee, as well as the central IT tech support group in > restoring field employees' computers back to useable state. > > This for the OP to share how my wife's company dealt with similar > problems - they eliminzted the source of the problems. > > Your wife's company has a liberal policy compared to mine. But this is my personal home computer and playing with it is a great source of amusement to me. I enjoyed my dalliance with a large RAID set but it was a trip to the moon on gossamer wings, just one of those things. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog
From: Bill Anderson on 27 Jun 2010 21:59
On 6/27/2010 1:28 PM, Paul wrote: > Bill Anderson wrote: >> Well, it was a fun experiment while it lasted (all of two weeks). >> >> I have four physical drives in my system. Three of them are 1.5TB >> drives and about two weeks ago I tied them together into a single >> 4.5TB RAID 0 (striped) set which I partitioned for storage of various >> types of data. The fourth physical drive is my boot drive where I put >> my operating systems (Win7 32 bit and Win7 64 bit). It was not part of >> the RAID set. >> >> Then last night I merely updated the video drivers in the Win7 64 bit >> setup and when the system rebooted, well, it wouldn't reboot. I'd get >> the Windows bootloader and I'd choose an OS and the little colored >> fireflies would begin to appear but then the system would freeze. >> >> After a bit of sleuthing I discovered that one of the three drives in >> the 4.5TB RAID set was now "non-RAID." Basically I was screwed. >> Fortunately I had nearly everything backed up -- I lost a couple of >> weeks of emails and some other minor things, but nothing important I >> can't recover with a little work. >> >> I wish I knew what caused the RAID set to come apart. Not only had the >> one drive (not the other two) become non-RAID, but BIOS had changed a >> bit too. BIOS no longer was set so that I could boot by pressing the >> spacebar -- I had to turn that back on -- and the system (ASUS P5Q Pro >> Turbo) was now trying to start with Express Gate -- I had to turn that >> off -- and a few other things had changed too: most interestingly, the >> J-MICRON eSATA/PATA controller had been turned back on. I'd learned it >> had to be turned off in order for me to get to the RAID setup. >> >> I think the problem was not the drive that had become non-RAID. I >> think the hiccup was in BIOS. >> >> But wherever the hiccup was, I learned my lesson. No more putting all >> my eggs in one 4.5TB striped basket. >> > > The Asus BIOS has the option of "recovering from overclock", and it > doesn't necessarily take overclocking to trigger it. That is exactly what happened. I am not overclocking but I did get the "recovering" message when the system restarted. I didn't mind losing the large RAID set. I have put everything back almost the way it was before, using the three 1.5TB drives as separate units. No big loss. > > If the BIOS thinks the computer crashed during the last session, > it assumes the reason was overclocking. It resets the BIOS to defaults. > On my P4C800-E Deluxe, I'd discover my Promise controller was turned > on, after I'd specifically left it turned off. On was the default value. > That's how I could tell it happened. > > Some other BIOS designers, only reset a few of the settings, like returning > DRAM settings to defaults and setting CPU clock to defaults. But as far > as I can remember, on my old board, it was other stuff as well, like > turning my Promise controller back on, enabling the Firewire I'd turned > off and so on. Very annoying. > > I don't know what happened to your stripe. Is there an option to delete > the array, and then create the array again ? Sometimes, you can do that > with certain array types, without losing anything. In a stripe, the same > disk would have to occupy the same relative position, so the stripes > would be in the right order, but other than that, if you used automatic > settings > before, then it should put it back the same way. It helps to practice this > stuff, before there is data on the array, because then you know whether > a certain choice in the RAID setup screen is destructive or not. > > The roles of the disks, should be defined by the metadata written near the > end of the disk. There is a 64KB chunk up near the end of the disk, that > tells the RAID BIOS module, which disk is which in the array. I'm not > buying that the metadata got erased. That's too spooky. Instead, the > first place I'd look, is the BIOS and see if there is a setting that > determines which port(s) are under RAID control. Maybe the > controller driving that disk, is set to IDE again, instead of > AHCI/RAID ? So even that could be a BIOS setting. I'd rather > believe that, than believe the metadata just disappeared. > I probably should have tried harder to recover, but I decided I did not want to let things go for months and build up important files on the RAID set only to lose everything. I decided to cut my losses when I could still afford to get out of the game. -- Bill Anderson I am the Mighty Favog |