On 19 May 2007 10:15:26 -0700, mwfischer82 (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:


The best two options are retrying the drive in the server-
taking the new array offline temporarily if possible, seeing
if the RAID controller & bios identify it as a member of an
array or allow use without assigning it to an array. Do not
assign it to an array if it wasn't shown as a member of one
by default as this may write to the drive which you want to
avoid if you are doing option #2-

Send it to a data recovery center.

You might also send Dell a bill for data recovery if that
route is taken, at least a strong complaint and avoidance of
their "support" on anything important.

kony wrote:

Fair enough. The difference though is that because the BIOS of a
standard board still have to be able to boot the drive then the S/W RAID
can't do anything non-standard.

Drives connected to a H/W controller don't necessarily have to follow
any standard because the BIOS is on the board, along with all the
processing power needed to convert the drive contents in to meaningful data.

Regards

Alex

On Sun, 20 May 2007 15:33:58 +0100, Alex Harrington
<spam (AT) alexharrington (DOT) co.uk> wrote:


Standard board bios does not have to be able to boot it, the
raid controller has it's own bios or embedded code in
mainboard bios that can be disabled and wouldn't boot or run
RAID0. RAID0 shows us another case of a *non-standard*
(versus single volume) access change, demonstrating the
software RAID controller's capability to do it, regardless
of merit or lack thereof for another alternative, the RAID1
mirror.

It is true either type of controller doens't "necessarily"
have to do anything normally. Instead we can consider that
with lack of reason not to do it standard, and a very clear
reason to do so (ability to add a data containing drive
volome to build a new mirrored set), it is typically the
case that you can do so and not have problems reading off a
single member later w/o the raid controller. This is in
contrast to other RAID modes.

Pity we never did get all the details on this server or
drive so a lot of time was wasted. Details like drive type
(WD 150GB only tells us brand and capacity, the two things
we don't need to know, although I'd guess that means it's an
SATA Raptor), specific server drive controller, a lot of
legwork might've been done by the OP to expedite the
situation.

kony wrote:

Agreed.

I have a particular dislike of SATA RAID, perhaps somewhat unfairly
gained by bitter experience with Adaptec 2810SA and 21610SA controllers
and Maxtor drives.

We're mainly an HP shop at work now so we're slowly moving over to SAS.
I've yet to have to try and read a RAID1 from one of those on a
different manufacturer SAS controller. Here's hoping I never have to


Cheers

Alex

mwfischer82 (AT) gmail (DOT) com wrote:
Please do not top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed
with) the quoted material to which you reply, after snipping all
irrelevant material. See the following links:

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