EPIC DISASTER - Raid 10 Failed

[not2bright]

Hi guys long time lurker, first time poster. In desperate need of your help.

Asus Maximus IV Extreme Z
i5 - 2500k
Windows 7
Four 2TB Western Digital HD's in Raid 10

So I had a raid 10 set up for my custom built pc. 4 hard drives, 2 TB each. I am a photographer and had many RAW pictures saved to this raid setup along with many other things. I've never had a problem with it until just recently. I just got back after being gone for nearly 3 months and booted up the computer and my Raid drive doesnt show up in My Computer. Apparently the BIOS was -perhaps- reset. How does it reset by itself while it is off? The date it showed was 1-1-2005 so I changed it to the current date/time. I check in advanced settings in the bios and raid-mode was NOT selected. How can this be? So I selected raid and hit reboot and now it says failed and only 2 drives are 'Member Disk(0)'

I am completely freaking out. What is it looking like? Is there a small trick to get it back up and working or am I SOL. If so, any chance to get ANYTHING from ANY of the drives?

TLDR;
1. Everything works fine.
2. Turn off computer.
3. Unplug everything from wall.
4. Leave for 3 months.
5. Come back.
6. Raid 10 failed

Thanks in advance!!!

 

[dingo07]

it seems like the battery on your motherboard is dead or dying. I'm guessing you didn't save the good working configuration, and can't reload it into memory from the BIOS? Do you recall how the drives were setup? The data will be fine as long as you don't write to the drives or create a new volume - all is not lost, yet!

 

[dariens007]

i'll say it like this, you may hear some advice on some tips and tricks on how to get your raid back up and running and such from comments on the forums. my strong suggestion is you have to suck it up and pay to get your data restored through a professional service. being that you are a photographer this is your work/profession. and learn from your mistake. BACKUP BACKUP BACKUP, sigh raid is not a backup because if it fails things tend to be toast.

have a 4TB with all your data on it, a 4TB external drive hookuped up to your computer for backup, and ANOTHER 4tb hookep up to your computer for backup and backup every week or every day if you need to.

 

[Ijack]

I don't have the experience of this sort of RAID to suggest a recovery procedure, but I think I can explain how it happened. It sounds as if the battery on your m/b is nearly exhausted and couldn't power the computer enough to retain the configuration information for that length of time.

As a precautionary measure I would suggest that you change the battery. And, at the risk of closing the stable door after the horse has bolted, can I point out to others - once again - that RAID is not a backup measure. Always keep a tested, reliable copy of any important data on some external medium. If it's really important keep two copies on different media.

 

[not2bright]

Thanks for the quick replies. Unfortunately I did not save any config as I am not intelligent enough with the bios. Also do not remember how the drives were setup besides clicking option 1 and just filling in the details. I just never thought that it would die on me like this. If anything I would just swap out a hard drive if it went bad with WD's 5 year warranty.

What do you suggest Dingo?

Will a replacement battery solve anything?

I have contacted Asus support but they have zero ideas about how to get this fixed. Tomorrow I'll get a call from a 'level 2' tech. Hopefully I'll get something besides the grimm news.

 

[dingo07]

well, if you can figure out which physical drives belonged to which RAID then you'll have it done - the raid 0 is a mirror (one drive goes ALL data goes) and the raid 1 is a copy of that, so essentially you want to find the 2 drives that hold the raid 1 data. but first things' first replace the mb battery

 

[not2bright]

well, if you can figure out which physical drives belonged to which RAID then you'll have it done - the raid 0 is a mirror (one drive goes ALL data goes) and the raid 1 is a copy of that, so essentially you want to find the 2 drives that hold the raid 1 data. but first things' first replace the mb battery

Not to sound stupid, but how would I recover the files once I figure out which raid they belonged to?

Edit: Replaced the battery and found which 2 drives they are, disconnected the other 2 but not sure how to proceed.

 

[dingo07]

try connecting them all and getting it to recover, connecting them to the same sata ports that you removed them from

 

[not2bright]

try connecting them all and getting it to recover, connecting them to the same sata ports that you removed them from

I connected all of them but don't have a clue how to recover. I'm trying out some different programs hoping for the best but so far no luck. I was told ALL my data is forever gone by Asus.

 

[not2bright]

Any idea which drive/s to select? My raid 10 was named 'WESTERN DIGITAL'.

EDIT: OMGOMGOMGOMG THIS IS WORKING@!@@@@@ THANK YOU JESUS!!!!

 

[Wastedfun]

As a side note. A software package like, Acronis True Image or anything similar can be configured to do automatic backups of important data like this.

For example, my SSD is small, so I am forced to put all Program Files data on other drives. So I just took two old 500GB drives and raid 0 them for speed. I know that is volatile both because of the setup and the age of the drives, so every two days while I sleep, it makes a complete backup of the drive.

If I were you, I would consider at least backing this precious data up to one other hard drive in your system. Bare minimal.

 

[TyrOd]

Yeah you need to do a proper backup.
You got lucky and the 2 drives that make up the complementary RAID0 set were online.
You can tell by the (0) in brackets by the drives.
It could have easily been a different drive and you'd be SOL even with RAID recovery software.