How to move my RAID 0 HDDs to check for failure

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chotai

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I think my hard drive failed the other day (Not the computer I'm using to write this.). When I turned on the computer I wouldn't to get to choose my OS (dual boot Vista/7) i just had a blinking cursor in the top left hand side of the screen. Then it had some code and said 'Error 15: File not found" then it took me to a red screen telling me to run with or withour RILS Loader (I dont think the letters are actually right but something along those lines) but eithehr option i choose just takes me back to the blinking cursor screen. I don't know if this is a hard drive fail or not so i want to test but i'm running with 2 1TB harddrives in RAID 0 and I don't have a computer in my house that supports RAID.

Can someone tell me what my problem is and what i can do to fix it I'm kind of worried about my computer.

Sorry about the long story but Thank You
 
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Since you run RAID0, i assume you have a full backup.

You can delete the RAID and restore the backup, starting fresh.

You can also take out the disks and fix them manually in another system.

If you still need the data on the disks, you should connect them to another system without RAID and boot up with Ubuntu, then access the RAID and copy the data off via the network.

So, do you want to fix your RAID or do you want to recover your data?
 
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chotai

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I actually do not have any sort of backup. (Obvious place for problems...) I was planning on recovering the data using another computer but does the computer have to be RAID capatable to fix them? Because at the moment I do not have access to any computer with RAID capatable.

Another idea I had was to put the HDDs into USB housings and fixing them as if they were external HDDs but I dont know of any housings that support RAID. Do you know of any?
 
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You can only perform the Ubuntu-recovery on NON-RAID SATA ports. Ubuntu will use software RAID to create the virtual RAID-array. You can then copy the contents of the RAID to another harddrive (local or via the network).

Running RAID0 without a backup does imply your data is not worth a dime. If that's not true, you really should consider buying a 1.5TB HDD solely for backups.
 
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chotai

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Thank you very much kind sir, but I have one more question. Only my main computer has SATA ports. My other 2 are older computers that only have IDE but they do have PCI slots. If i were to get a PCI SATA controller and hook up the HDDs through that would the Ubuntu recovery work?

And later today I am going out to get a 2TB external HDD for backup.
 
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If the PCI card is supported under Linux (most are) then yes.

Though you may wish to opt for PCI-express x1 slots, unless your older systems don't have those as well - likely if they also lack SATA. In that case, a simple PCI SATA would work.

But you can also use your own computer. You only need a CD/DVDROM drive (on PATA?) and the two disks on SATA. Then disable RAID mode in BIOS and boot into Ubuntu, you should be able to access the data on the RAID - unless the filesystem is damaged also.

In that last case, buy a single 2TB drive. Ubuntu can byte-copy the contents of the 2x1TB RAID (with damaged NTFS filesystem) to the 2TB RAID. So now you don't rely on RAID anymore, and can use Windows utilities to recover your data; who do not need to support RAID. Note that this would require 3 SATA ports - unless you connect the new 2TB drive by USB.
 
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chotai

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Ugh.. Another problem. I have Ubuntu running from a LiveUSB, I turned my HDDs from RAID mode to SATA mode from the BIOS, and both of the HDDs show up in my BIOS but they don't show up in Ubuntu. What could be wrong?
 
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Just ignore his unhelpful remark.

You said your HDDs do not show up under Ubuntu. Did you try looking in Places -> Home, then on the left side you should see ".... Filesystem" If you click those, does any of these contain your RAID-data?

If not, can you give me the output of:
# simple one-one output or no ouput at all if no software-RAID device was created
ls -l /dev/md*
ls -l /dev/sd*
dmesg | grep sd

# do not need output of the following command
# will install mdadm
sudo apt-get install mdadm

# send output of:
mdadm --detail /dev/md0

If those give no output, you may have to manually create your raid. In that case you would need to supply the stripesize of your RAID0 array. Do you know it?
 
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chotai

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I'm sorry but I don't know how to do that output thing (new with Linux). And I have my stripesize written down somewhere I would just have to find it
 
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Commands are typed in on the Terminal; much like Command Prompt in Windows. Click the menu Applications, then click Accessories, click Terminal.

That opens a text window you can enter commands in. So you start with the first command:

ls -l /dev/md*

type exactly as shown. When you press enter, you get text output; i need to have the output of each of those commands listed in my previous post. Except the output of the command "sudo apt-get install mdadm" because that's just for installing the "mdadm" application.

Finding your stripesize is quite important, i hope you can find it. That would make it easier to recover your data if you have a broken array.
 
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chotai

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ok I don't really know what this means, I just copied everything in the Terminal after typing what you gave me.

ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ # simple one-one output or no ouput at all if no software-RAID device was created
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls -l /dev/md*
ls: cannot access /dev/md*: No such file or directory
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ ls -l /dev/sd*
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 0 2010-03-16 04:52 /dev/sda
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 1 2010-03-16 04:52 /dev/sda1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 16 2010-03-16 04:52 /dev/sdb
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 17 2010-03-16 04:52 /dev/sdb1
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 32 2010-03-16 04:52 /dev/sdc
brw-rw---- 1 root disk 8, 33 2010-03-16 04:52 /dev/sdc1
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ dmesg | grep sd
[ 63.778087] sd 10:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg0 type 0
[ 63.781164] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] 1952151552 512-byte logical blocks: (999 GB/930 GiB)
[ 63.783245] sd 8:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg2 type 0
[ 63.783512] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] Write Protect is off
[ 63.783515] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] Mode Sense: 23 00 10 00
[ 63.783516] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.783819] sd 9:0:0:0: Attached scsi generic sg3 type 0
[ 63.785073] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] 1465149168 512-byte logical blocks: (750 GB/698 GiB)
[ 63.785580] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] 3915776 512-byte logical blocks: (2.00 GB/1.86 GiB)
[ 63.785702] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Write Protect is off
[ 63.785704] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Mode Sense: 2d 08 00 00
[ 63.785705] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.786573] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.786575] sda:
[ 63.786706] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
[ 63.786708] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 23 00 00 00
[ 63.786710] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.786945] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.786947] sdc:
[ 63.790702] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.790705] sdb: sdb1
[ 63.794713] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.794716] sd 8:0:0:0: [sdb] Attached SCSI removable disk
[ 63.812457] sdc1
[ 63.816102] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 63.816107] sd 9:0:0:0: [sdc] Attached SCSI disk
[ 64.273429] sda1
[ 64.277424] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] Assuming drive cache: write through
[ 64.277428] sd 10:0:0:0: [sda] Attached SCSI disk
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ # do not need output of the following command
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ # will install mdadm
ubuntu@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-get install mdadm
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
postfix
Suggested packages:
procmail postfix-mysql postfix-pgsql postfix-ldap postfix-pcre sasl2-bin
resolvconf postfix-cdb
The following NEW packages will be installed:
mdadm postfix
0 upgraded, 2 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 1,544kB of archives.
After this operation, 3,932kB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue [Y/n]?
Click to expand...
I didn't do anything after this, just exited the Terminal

And I found my stripe size paper it said,

RAID Mode: Striped
Stripe Width: 2
Stripe Block: 64K

Hopefully this is promising information.
 
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Ubuntu sees three drives:
/dev/sda: the external 1TB
/dev/sdb: the 2GB USB pendrive
/dev/sdc: the external 750GB

So it doesn't appear to see the two RAID drives. Please make sure you have disabled RAID mode and are running in AHCI mode instead; check your BIOS. Also, i would suggest disconnecting all storage from the system except the DVDROM drive and the two former RAID0 1TB disks. So disconnect your two external disks and USB pendrive for the moment, and boot Ubuntu with cd/dvd instead.

If you do this, it should only detect your CD/DVD drive and your two RAID disks as two separate disks. If Ubuntu detects your disks, it may automatically be able to access it. All you need to do is click the Places menu on top, click Home. In the window that opens, a "... GB Filesystem" mount will appear on the left side of the screen. That should contain your data.
 
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chotai

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Oh...You are suposed to use AHCI, I was using SATA. I will try this as soon as possible and see how it goes.
 
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Ok, I was using a LiveUSB before. Now when I try to use the CD I get this message

(initramfs) Unable to find a medium containing a live file system

And it doesn't let me boot from a USB in AHCI mode.
 
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You selected the first menu option? Called "Try Ubuntu without changing anything on your computer" or something like that. Thats the livecd that requires no installation.

It should boot and give you a desktop to work with. There you can open the terminal and do your tests. So you never have to install anything to do this stuff - all you need to do is boot from the Ubuntu livecd.
 
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chotai

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Yes, that's what I did. It works for my LiveUSB but I get that error message when I use the CD.
 
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