Question RAID 1 drive failure? Or something else?

[OzoneO3]

I'm looking for advice on whether or not the problem I'm experiencing is a hard drive failure of one drive in a RAID 1 configuration.

I have a configuration similar to https://forums.tomshardware.com/threads/what-happens-if-a-drive-in-a-raid-1-fails.655847/, mainly my D: drive is a RAID 1 array with 2 2TB HDs. Came back from vacation, and my D: drive isn't showing up at all any more. Got into the BIOS, and the RAID controller reports

Virtual Disks
No Virtual Disk!
Physical Disks
Port ... Size ...
S0 ... 2TB ...
S1 ... 4.1GB ...

So it looks like the second hard drive magically shrank. Is this normal for a HD failure? It's not gone, just showing incorrect info.

I was also under the impression that when a drive goes bad in a RAID 1 configuration, the other drive is still available. In my case, it's just not showing up in the OS. Is that normal? And what about the "No Virtual Disk!" message? It's been a long time since I set this up, so I don't recall if the virtual disk setting was done, or optional, or whatever. This is making me wonder if the failure is with the HD, or maybe with the disk controller.

Finally, I'm looking for advice on next steps. I'd like to run with the single drive until I can get around to obtaining a replacement for the bad one, but I'm just not sure how the RAID 1 system works. Will the new drive just get whatever is on the working drive, or does the new drive need to be in place before new data is written to the working drive?

I appreciate any help folks can offer.

 

[OzoneO3]

An update: I disconnected the SATA cable to the HD reporting the wrong size, trying to simulate just a total HD failure. The BIOS sees the 2TB drive, but Windows doesn't. So does that mean that RAID 1 doesn't just default to the single working drive? Or is this pointing in another direction, like a problem with the BIOS settings?

 

[popatim]

System specs including the raid controller info plz

Also, double check that you have it set for raid 1 and not raid 0. The 'no virtual disks' makes me think you did not set this up in the raid controller. Did you do it in windows?

 

[OzoneO3]

System specs:
GIGABYTE GA-Z77X-D3H motherboard
Marvell 88SE9172 SATA controller
Seagate ST2000DM001 hard disks; the one that says 2TB in the BIOS says ST2000DM001-1CH164, the other one is missing the -1CH164.

I know that I had set it for RAID 1, certainly not RAID 0, since I had two 2TB drives, and my D: drive was 2TB. But that was a long time ago (as you can probably tell by the model numbers...)

My big worry is that the behavior is not fitting the RAID 1 model: 1 disk fails, pop it out, pop in a new one, rebuild, and go. Since the drive has disappeared from Windows, it seems like some other failure (like in the controller) has occurred. The "no virtual disk" message supports that.

Looking over some of the other threads, I'm thinking the best course of action is to put the working drive on a different SATA port (I have spares) without RAID, get two fresh HDs, rebuild the RAID 1, and then transfer from the old disk to the new array. Although if the Marvell SATA controller has failed, then maybe it's time to get a new motherboard...

I just noticed another issue. The manual shows that after building the RAID array, the status should be "assigned", but both disks are showing "free".


Hope that's helpful information to diagnose, and I appreciate the advice.