Import Foreign Disk Help!!!!

quiky87

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May 9, 2010
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I have 4 Disks that are spanned dynamically and all of them show up in disk management but when I try to import them (from another system that no longer exists). it says import: foreign disk group 2 of 2. It has this twice so I know it sees all 4 but it recognizes it as 2 groups of 2. It then asks are you sure you want to do this as its incomplete it could cause loss of data etc. it would be disatrous to lose the data on this disk. What should I do?
 
I also found out that if I try to import them without all 4 the data will be destroyed. I just don't know how it assigns and recognizes that they are or are not part of the same group, is there some regedit?
 
This the reason to BACKUP YOUR DATA!!! A system that "No longer exists" is a major problem... Another reason to use a DEDICATED RAID card... The motherboard is no longer the issue... How are you going to REGEDIT a system that no longer exists? NOT!
 


I fixed it by importing them separately with another program (O&O Partition manager). and I am using FlexRAID now. Why don't you try offering help instead of belittling? It's people like you who give forums a bad taste in peoples mouths. Here is some helpful advice:
1. Use proper English and grammar
2. Try and help people instead of tear them down
 


Well Said, as I was reading marcellis22 comment I was thinking the same thing. Help people instead of bashing. Also for future reference for anyone else reading just because you don't know the answer or think it is impossible to do something don't guess and say that's it. You would be better off not commenting at all and let someone else provide a answer. Who knows, you might learn something.
 
I know this is an older post, but I wanted to say that I had the exact same issue when swapping my 4 disk raid-5 array to a new windows 2012 server. I went to import the foreign disk and didn't realize that two of my four disks were offline. When I went to import the other two disks, it saw them as a separate group and would display message saying the group is incomplete and importing could cause data loss.

Here's what I did to correct it:

- Download O&O Partition Manager (I got a free 30-day trial from CNET)

- Loaded Windows 7 on a separate hard drive, since O&O wouldn't install on a server OS. Even if you're on an OS that supports it, it's a good idea to spin up a new OS so that it will see the disks as a new group of foreign disks.

- Run O&O and select import for each of your disks in the broken array. Note that the array will not be available yet.

- Boot back to your primary operating system and make sure all the disks are online. Right-click on one of the disks and select import foreign disk. You will then see all disks in the group can be added at once.

quiky87, you saved me! I could not find any other solutions on the internet. I'm setting up an offline backup system now.. lesson learned.
 



Excellent instructions! Thank You! This is the second time my RAID 1 config has done this in a month. The first time it was easy to get back online through Disk Management. This time I needed the O&O software. Any thoughts on why this might be? My RAID config does only have 4% free space (yes, I know I want to leave 15% free minimum, but I am TOTALLY maxed out on space AND bays... I need a Synology 8 bay NAS asap) Could this be the culprit of my recent multiple crashes?