Can not access HDD with RAID configured

[associates]

Hi everyone,

I have a question here. When your hard drive has been configured with RAID 1 mirroring system, how would I be able to access to the data on the drive if the external RAID card has failed. The PC runs on XP Pro Sp3 when everything was working well. I have tried to attach the hard disk to another PC hoping it could be visible and I can access the data this way but unfortunately it did not.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you

 

[HugoStiglitz]

A drive in Raid 1 (Mirror) should be able to be disconnected and plugged into another PC (or the same PC) and configured as a normal drive (no Raid) and accessed in windows.

Did you check disk management and confirm it was there. it may have had trouble being assigned a drive letter.

 

[associates]

A drive in Raid 1 (Mirror) should be able to be disconnected and plugged into another PC (or the same PC) and configured as a normal drive (no Raid) and accessed in windows.

Did you check disk management and confirm it was there. it may have had trouble being assigned a drive letter.

Thanks for the reply.

I did check it on the disk management and did not find it there

 

[Paperdoc]

There are two steps to make sure the HDD unit you are trying to use is working.

1. On booting up, go immediately into BIOS Setup to the home screen and look at all the HDD's listed. (This assumes the drive you're trying to use is mounted internally, not in a external case via USB or something.) Is that drive shown properly? If it does not exist, or if its type or size is wrong, you have a hardware problem to solve. But if it shows properly, you're in good shape. Now, still in BIOS Setup, if you are trying to access this HDD as a single drive (NOT as part of a RAID1 pair), then make sure the SATA port it is connected to is set to IDE (or PATA) Emulation mode. It should NOT be set to RAID mode. Win XP in all forms does NOT know how to use SATA (or more correctly, AHCI) devices unless you install an AHCI driver. So assuming you have not done that, setting the BIOS to IDE Emulation mode will tell the BIOS to make that SATA drive appear to Win XP to be a simpler IDE drive it DOES understand and can access.

2. If the drive is being detected properly as good hardware, it REALLY should show up in Disk Management. But where? When you look at the Disk Management screen, on the right are TWO panes, and each of them SCROLLS so you can see all they contain. Concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane - it shows all the valid hardware storage devices, including those the Windows still does not understand. If your HDD was OK in BIOS Setup, it ought to be here, too. Now you need to look closely at what the labels on that HDD tell you. Look for things like what the size of its Partition is, what is the letter name assigned to it (or, does it not have a letter name?), what its File System is (hopefully NTFS, but is it RAW, by any chance?) and its status. Post this info back here for further advice.

 

[associates]

Thank you Paperdoc for your advice. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to get back to you on how I went. There is something else that needs to be done first prior to this. I'll get back to you on that one but for now, I'd keep that in mind. Thank you once again.

There are two steps to make sure the HDD unit you are trying to use is working.

1. On booting up, go immediately into BIOS Setup to the home screen and look at all the HDD's listed. (This assumes the drive you're trying to use is mounted internally, not in a external case via USB or something.) Is that drive shown properly? If it does not exist, or if its type or size is wrong, you have a hardware problem to solve. But if it shows properly, you're in good shape. Now, still in BIOS Setup, if you are trying to access this HDD as a single drive (NOT as part of a RAID1 pair), then make sure the SATA port it is connected to is set to IDE (or PATA) Emulation mode. It should NOT be set to RAID mode. Win XP in all forms does NOT know how to use SATA (or more correctly, AHCI) devices unless you install an AHCI driver. So assuming you have not done that, setting the BIOS to IDE Emulation mode will tell the BIOS to make that SATA drive appear to Win XP to be a simpler IDE drive it DOES understand and can access.

2. If the drive is being detected properly as good hardware, it REALLY should show up in Disk Management. But where? When you look at the Disk Management screen, on the right are TWO panes, and each of them SCROLLS so you can see all they contain. Concentrate on the LOWER RIGHT pane - it shows all the valid hardware storage devices, including those the Windows still does not understand. If your HDD was OK in BIOS Setup, it ought to be here, too. Now you need to look closely at what the labels on that HDD tell you. Look for things like what the size of its Partition is, what is the letter name assigned to it (or, does it not have a letter name?), what its File System is (hopefully NTFS, but is it RAW, by any chance?) and its status. Post this info back here for further advice.

 

[associates]

Best answer selected by associates.