RAID...broken

[bozo]

I have been chasing down computer problems for about three weeks now…and need help!

Computer specs:
P-4 2.4 Mhz-processor
Gigabyte GA-81HXP with onboard Promise RAID controller (driver ver. MBFastTrak 133 lite ™BIOS Version 2.00.0.xx)
Matching 40 gig HD’s…Maxtor ATA/133
6 Partitions
Dual boot using a Boot manager (V-Com System Commander ver.7)
Installed OS’s:
Windows XP (primary OS) on partition C:
Windows 98 SE (secondary OS) on partition E:

This system has been rock solid for 1 ½ yrs, and well maintained with nightly virus scans, defrag ect.. Everything is backed up…so I am in no danger of loosing data…question is: Do I format the entire drive, or troubleshoot to revive what I have (preferred)?

Three weeks ago I started noticing sluggish behavior, very slow to shut down. I was contemplating rolling the OS to a previous state using an image (Drive Image) from a few months back that I knew was stable. It acted like I may have had a virus, but I have two virus programs ( AGV & System Suite), both updated, that did not detect anything. I also ran a couple of online scans as well as a couple of worm removal tools (Stinger from McKafee & a cleaner from Norton)…Nothing detected. Now it gets even more complicated.

My troubleshooting steps:
note: I intentionally labeled the first two number 1, because I cannot say with certainty which I did first

1. I got a critical error on POST saying that one of my drives in the RAID array has failed, with a prompt to “Enter FastTrak configuration utility” press ctrl+F, or esc to continue. I browsed to the utility, and found out it was advising me that the “Slave” drive was faulty. I exited out & continued to boot.

1. I entered the BIOS and it has options for “Load Fail Save Values” & “Load Old Settings”…I felt this seemed a harmless move so I “Loaded Fail Save Values”, saved & booted…no difference so I rebooted & “Loaded Old Setting”. Now XP would not open (blue screen error message), but I was still able to open 98. My RAID Array was now broken & My Computer was showing 12 drives (a duplicate of each of the original partitions). My boot manager was showing two XP icons, & two 98 icons (both icons of 98 would work…which makes me curious if the supposed failed slave drive was in fact “failed”). I operated this way for a week (crippled, but somewhat working). I noticed that my POST was not the same during that week, and a foreign controller was loading. The option to enter “FastTrak Configuration Utility” (ctrl+F) was not available. I took a careful look at the BIOS settings again with manual in hand, and discovered that the “Onboard Promise Chip” was set to “ATA”…which is wrong & changed it to “RAID”. That brought back the correct controller on boot, and again I had the “Critical Error” on the failed slave drive, as well as the “FastTrak Configuration Utility”. Whew!

2. By now I had a new matching drive to replace the failed drive, & installed the new drive, booted, entered the “FastTrak Configuration Utility”, tried the “Rebuild” option, and it was then that I found out that the Array was RAID 0 (striping), when it should have been RAID 1 (mirror). Now I have no idea how that change took place…I surely know I would NEVER have changed it, and I do, In fact, know for certain, that I was running in “mirrored” in the past. The “Rebuild” option will not work on stripe arrays.

3. I deleted the array, so now there were no arrays defined, & rebooted, configured a new array RAID 1 Mirror.

4. I reboot, and now I have a new problem…my boot manager reports an error with some options…I have tried all the options, and none of them fixed the error. The system hangs there, eventually telling me something like “this is not a bootable disk”… I can’t even get to the OS selection menu or, the BIOS.

5. I have a restart floppy from System Commander, and I can see only one partition, that is completely empty ( so it is seeing the new slave only). It would make sense that the new drive would be empty, because the “Rebuild” of the array has not been done yet, but I do not understand why it chooses (I guess) to see only the new HD, instead of the original master HD.

6. I re-installed the old slave…I still get the critical array error, but I notice, there is two arrays, one stripped & one mirrored. The stripped labeled as “functional”, and the mirrored as “Critical”.


I esc out & now can boot to XP and have access to data & proggies (sluggish) , so I have a golden opportunity to get some last second data burnt to CD, before I troubleshoot any more. With XP open I am able to access System Commander’s utility where there is an option to rebuild MBR.

My game plan is to rebuild MBR, shut down & put in the new slave, & see what happens…If I can get past the boot manager error to the “FastTrak Configuration Utility”, then delete/ rebuild an array again. I eagerly await the expert opinions here if I am going in the right direction.

There is a utility that is suppost to be installed, but is not. I am hoping some can steer me to it. It is called “ FastCheck ™ Monitoring Utility, a windows based utility much like the “FastTrak Configuration Utility”, but has some additional options (like “synchronize drives). It would be at gigabyte.com, which I tried to navigate yesterday, but there site is not made for dial-up connections (their support page I let run until I DL’d 2.4 MB of it & still didn’t show even a picture….so I aborted. Perhaps someone with a high speed connection could help me acquire that program.

Thanx-larry

[Spartan]

Have you tried running Disk Management to see if the computer can see both drives? You can format the new one from there also.

-Spartan

[bozo]

I have no problem formatting the drive if that is what I wanted to do, but I am first attempting to rebuild the array to see if I can avoid a complete format.

bozo

[glc]

I know this is not helpful, but this is one reason why I don't like IDE RAID. It's still not ready for prime time in my opinion.

If you have all your data burnt, it may be best to go ahead and just break the array completely and low level the drives with Powermax or Maxblast, and start from scratch.