Intel ICHxR RAID Data Recovery 101

[Charles Wirth]

Just posting up some useful information for those who need to repair a broken raid on Intel chipsets.

Sometimes a drive can drop out of the raid set and get reset to "non-raid disk and when this happens it can be a nightmare and you can lose data if not handled properly.

Do not go into the CTRL-I raid utility to fix, this will destroy the data as it resets back to raid disk.

You need a few applications downloaded from the net from www.runtime.org.

You will need a PC that boots and has plenty of connectors for the raid drives you need to get data from.

Connect the drives and boot into windows with raid drives connected, do not enable raid for those drives, just connect and boot into windows.

Windows will go though its discovery and stuff, let it finish but dont go into the drive system manger panel in windows.

Download and run Raid Reconstructor and tell it what raid level you had and select what drives are from the raid set. If you had raid 5 it needs all but one drive to reconstruct the set or it can use all drives, it didnt seem to make a difference in speed. Once Raid Reconstructor runs it quick wizard to figure out stripe and block size it will then prompt you to start up Captain Nemo or Getmydataback NTFS. I used GMDB NTFS.

Raid Reconstructor then feeds its discovery map into GMDB and begins the rebuild process, it will scan the entire raid set for all data and display the directory structure. You can then copy the data from the damaged raid onto a hard disk or whatever you have to hold the data you want to recover.

When a disk drops from raid, the map information is lost and this is why you cannot just reset back to a raid disk. With the information from Raid Reconstructor it is possible to reset the drive back to raid when you pay for the $299 service. I am yet to go that route but I was successful in a raid 5 recovery of all data.

[003]

Sticky.

[fgw]

can confirm fugger's observations!

about 2 weeks ago, one of my disks died! this was no problem for the raid 1 volume on the disks, but the raid 0 volume where my xp installation sits was to be called lost.

as i expected the electronic module on the disk as the faulting part and i had nothing to loose anymore i decided to do some research and found Runtime Software on the net.

using the electonic module from another identical drive on the defective disk and "RAID Reconstructor" from runtime, i was able to recover all data of my raid 0 volume!

great product to recommend. also take a look at their imaging software DriveImage XML which is free to download. this software, like RAID Reconstructor can also be integrated in BartPE via Plugins allowing you to create a bootable cd with all the tools you need ...

[Da_maniaC]

Sounds like some very useful information.

Would this 'RAID reconstructor' also be necessary for RAID1 arrays?

I have heard stories where people could only recover failed RAID1 arrays (the spare disk that is still in good health) when it was attached to the original controller.

Since it is a plain mirror i am quite puzzled as to how this would be necessary.

Is this the case with Intel ICHxR controllers?

[fgw]

Would this 'RAID reconstructor' also be necessary for RAID1 arrays?

Is this the case with Intel ICHxR controllers?

no, you should not need it for a raid 1 array. its the idea of raid 1 to be able to access data after the failure of a single drive (assuming two drives in the array).

the system will boot and access data as if there is no problem, tough bios and matrix storage manager will notify you of the failed drive. at least this was the case in my situation working with an intel ich8r.

[BulldogPO]

So this concerns mainly RAID 0?

[Deodatus]

There is another way to restore your RAID array if a disk dropped out. If you have a hardware failure on one of your disks, this way won't work, otherwise it should be fine. It worked for me three times. Note that this way also won't work if your windows install is on the raid array you're trying to recover, because then your pc won't boot.

*I am not responsible for any data loss blablabla, I'm just giving you a possible sollution; from my experience it tends to work*
1) Enter the Ctrl-I configuration utility. Write your raid level, array size, stripe size and everything else that can be configured on a piece of paper, you'll need this info later.
2) Delete the Raid-array. Yup, that's right, just throw it away.
3) Reboot and create a new array just like your old one. If you do not use the full disk for your array, make the array slightly (0.5GB or so) larger than the old one, so you're sure the old one fits on the new one.
4) Reboot. Don't enter the drive system manger panel in windows. Download and install testdisk. http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
5) Start testdisk. The program ask you whether or not it should create a log file. It doesn't matter for all I know, so choose whatever you like. Select your brand new raid array. Select 'Intel partition' if you have a regular
Windows partition. Next choose 'Analyse', then 'Quick search'. If your old array doesn't show up, try 'Deeper search'. Now your partition should show. Select the old partition and press Enter, then 'Write'. Testdisk now
writes the old partition table on your new array.
6) Close the program, reboot and everything should be fine.

This is how I always do it, might be worth a try.

[MrHydes]

basically what is ICHxR?
or what's the diferences between ICH9R?

[003]

The X can stand for any number. ICH6R, 7, 8, 9, 10, etc...

[Mr.Guvernment]

book marking this since i am just venturing into matrix raid!

[Kazi]

Hello all,

After i defaulted the bios of my P5e3 premium my raid0 array would not boot anymore.

I think the problem is that i saved (and exited) the defaulted bios, before changing the raidcontroller setting from ide to raid. So in other words. I booted my mobo with the incorrect raid controller setting (IDE). With the incorrect setting i did not try to boot my Vista 64bit, I just booted into bios again to change it from ide to raid. But after i set it to the correct setting and tried to boot into vista 64bit it did not work. It says i have to insert bootable media and press a key.

They array seems to be fine and the array is still listed in bios as a bootable device, but the system isnt able to boot from it anymore.

Can anyone confirm that booting the mobo with incorrect raid controller settings will messup the Raid0 bootdevice (partition)?
Is this a common issue? and is here a work arround?


Kazi

[vengance_01]

sounds like the MBR is broken. Run the repair utility on the Vista install disk. Also does the raid Rom see your configuration IE Raid 0,1,5 as the same as it was before?

[chevell]

Hello all,

After i defaulted the bios of my P5e3 premium my raid0 array would not boot anymore.

I think the problem is that i saved (and exited) the defaulted bios, before changing the raidcontroller setting from ide to raid. So in other words. I booted my mobo with the incorrect raid controller setting (IDE). With the incorrect setting i did not try to boot my Vista 64bit, I just booted into bios again to change it from ide to raid. But after i set it to the correct setting and tried to boot into vista 64bit it did not work. It says i have to insert bootable media and press a key.

They array seems to be fine and the array is still listed in bios as a bootable device, but the system isnt able to boot from it anymore.

Can anyone confirm that booting the mobo with incorrect raid controller settings will messup the Raid0 bootdevice (partition)?
Is this a common issue? and is here a work arround?


Kazi

You just have to go back into bios and enable all your sata drives again. Happens everytime you go to defaults in bios.

[DoubleCored]

Just posting up some useful information for those who need to repair a broken raid on Intel chipsets.

Sometimes a drive can drop out of the raid set and get reset to "non-raid disk and when this happens it can be a nightmare and you can lose data if not handled properly.

Do not go into the CTRL-I raid utility to fix, this will destroy the data as it resets back to raid disk.

You need a few applications downloaded from the net from www.runtime.org.

You will need a PC that boots and has plenty of connectors for the raid drives you need to get data from.

Connect the drives and boot into windows with raid drives connected, do not enable raid for those drives, just connect and boot into windows.

Windows will go though its discovery and stuff, let it finish but dont go into the drive system manger panel in windows.

Download and run Raid Reconstructor and tell it what raid level you had and select what drives are from the raid set. If you had raid 5 it needs all but one drive to reconstruct the set or it can use all drives, it didnt seem to make a difference in speed. Once Raid Reconstructor runs it quick wizard to figure out stripe and block size it will then prompt you to start up Captain Nemo or Getmydataback NTFS. I used GMDB NTFS.

Raid Reconstructor then feeds its discovery map into GMDB and begins the rebuild process, it will scan the entire raid set for all data and display the directory structure. You can then copy the data from the damaged raid onto a hard disk or whatever you have to hold the data you want to recover.

When a disk drops from raid, the map information is lost and this is why you cannot just reset back to a raid disk. With the information from Raid Reconstructor it is possible to reset the drive back to raid when you pay for the $299 service. I am yet to go that route but I was successful in a raid 5 recovery of all data.

Awesome stuff.

Thank you very much for this....it worked like a charm!

[tjelaw]

Dont know where else to ask this,

but is it possible to transfer a raid from a ICH7 (975x board) to a newer board with ICH10?

[Charles Wirth]

Tjelaw, yes Intel RAID has been forward upgradeable for many revs now but going from 7 to 10 I never tried. It might work but you would need newest .inf already on the drive when you boot or you will BSOD on boot.

[cadaveca]

I ahve done this, and as Fugger suggest, install newest chipset driver before migration.

[tjelaw]

Ok thanks for the info, much appriciated

[geok1ng]

Good info on careful management of dropped RAIDs.

I defend the no nonsense way: a RAId 0 of fast and small drives,like a pair of velociraptors (better yet on a hardware implementation like ASUS easy RAID feature to AVOID OS hassles with ACIH-IDE modes) and and external drive with routine dayly drive image backup:
A-Not all the dropped RAID 0s can be recovered by softwares, and the solution proposed demands another working machine for the data recovery
B-failed BIOS setups or failed OSs installs can ruin a RAID, but with a backup drive image RAID recosntruction is direct and much faster than any software solution
C-A burned electronic circuit in a HD does not mean permanent data loss, like was demonstrated above, but you will still need another HDs circuit board for the repair- just save costs and add and external drive dedicated for image backup: the 300GB velociraptors can be recovered for $80 with Maxtor OneTouch external HD.
The product information couldnt be more oriented towards the RAID0 velociraptors situation: "Back up your files with a push of a button or set up the software to perform convenient automatic backups.
Simplifies drive management and backup scheduling"

[Xcel]

When I lost my raid0 array on my ich8r I just put the disks to IDE in bios, started windows from another HD and recovered the data with raidreconstructor and getdataback. No need for another comp if you have a spare HD.

[Hamilton]

Thanks a million for this info Fugger!
It worked like a charm using RaidReconstructor and GetDataBack to recover the data from my two Raptors that I had used in RAID-0!

And now I'll try to do at least weekly backups of the array!

[lennyvee]

Thanks for posting this, good info.

[DMF]

So this concerns mainly RAID 0?

RAID 0 is most susceptible, but RAID 1 can have an issue, too. When the first disk of the pair drops, it leaves a perfect copy but that copy may not be bootable. Windows instructs you to test both alone to be sure they boot, apparently because the 'Make Array' function often fails so that you cannot boot directly to the second drive. The MS Knowledge Base doesn't say how to fix it. You have to edit BOOT.INI to correct the entry for the second drive.

Here is the thread from when I had to deal with the problem.

Btw, I never did figure out why the first drive wouldn't boot when re-installed, but if you can boot from the second you can always rebuild it.

[ShapeGSX]

Some more valuable information for using Raid Reconstructor.

As mentioned in Fugger's post, you must disable RAID in the BIOS. But you also must disable AHCI. If you don't, the Intel BIOS can recognize the first disk in the RAID array as the complete RAID drive, which for a 2 disk array is 2x the size of the physical disk.

[Charles Wirth]

I was asked to fix a Intel ICHR stripe where one drives dropped out of set and no longer appeared as a "member disk".

I set it up with the above utilities and one of the drives was physically damaged and it could not complete the image process enough to restore data.

What I did

I hooked both drives up and enabled Intel raid and entered the Raid Utility with CTRL - I
I deleted the one remaining drive from the raid set and then remade the raid with default settings
After it rebooted, windows loaded and I was able to copy off critical stuff

I got lucky with this method.