Question Raid 5 si3114 spanned drive disk failure of 1 of 4 drives how to save the data and access the drives

[athleticmistud]

I have a si3114 controller and set up as a Raid 5 spanned drive. i am running windows 10

I have 4 hard drives to make up my raid and one of them has completely failed.

I remove the drive from the array and replaced it with a drive that is the same size as the failed one. when i go into the sataraid5 manager it shows only the other 3 drives not the replaced one.

When I go in to the disk managment I shows the raid as dynamic spanned and then i can see the 3 drives all that say failed. my only option is to click reconnect but clicking it does nothing.

How do i get the data off of these 3 drives I have a extra drive i can use to back up on but dont know how to do this. or is there something i can do that will allow the raid to work again with the replaced new drive so that i can at least get my files and data off of it??

my second question is if that cant be done is there a way to change the dynamic disk to basic disk with out losing my data so i can get the data off of them at least?

so i have little computer knowledge so if you can give me step by step directitons that would help a lot

i have gone in to the bios setup and it only is showing 3 of he 4 drives as well
thanks

 

[athleticmistud]

If you select the "Unmounted dynamic volume", what options does it give you?

Again, I've not used this, never had to.

if i click on the missing volume on the disk manager i can pick delete or reactivate that is all and nothing happens if i pick reactivate

 

[athleticmistud]

If you select the "Unmounted dynamic volume", what options does it give you?

Again, I've not used this, never had to.

the thing is if i reboot the computer. and press f4 to get to the raid setup. it is only seeing 3 of the drives. not the new one i added. i think i have to add a drive or something here for it to be seen but i am not sure

 

[athleticmistud]

yeah! the software you knew that i knew i had the Relclaim worked so far found all my files. now only thing is it lost the file names it gives them all numbers but is there a way to get the file names back on the boot record orsometing?

https://imgur.com/AzNXxQz

View: https://imgur.com/AzNXxQz

 

[DSzymborski]

yeah! the software you knew that i knew i had the Relclaim worked so far found all my files. now only thing is it lost the file names it gives them all numbers but is there a way to get the file names back on the boot record orsometing?

https://imgur.com/AzNXxQz

View: https://imgur.com/AzNXxQz

You should recover the files while you still have the ability to do so, file names or no.

 

[USAFRet]

yeah! the software you knew that i knew i had the Relclaim worked so far found all my files. now only thing is it lost the file names it gives them all numbers but is there a way to get the file names back on the boot record orsometing?

I do not know if that is possible, and I suspect not. The File Allocation Table is what holds that.

Further, I would not expect those to be full individual "files".
Those sizes are suspiciously similar.

But....Copy ALL of that to elsewhere first. Real files names or no.

 

[athleticmistud]

i am copying them to a 4 tb new hard drive. but what do you suggest for a backup is a solid state or a 3.5 single 4 tb hard drive better and less likely to fail? i had the raid originally so i could have one drive that was big (that was 14 years ago) but now drives hold so much more a single drive does it all for me so what is the best way to go?

 

[USAFRet]

i am copying them to a 4 tb new hard drive. but what do you suggest for a backup is a solid state or a 3.5 single 4 tb hard drive better and less likely to fail? i had the raid originally so i could have one drive that was big (that was 14 years ago) but now drives hold so much more a single drive does it all for me so what is the best way to go?

An 8TB external can be had for under $150.
Free software, automated, done.
I use Macrium Reflect.

The first post here is my procedure, adjusted some since I wrote this.
Backs up to a big NAS, but just as easily could be a USB connected external or two.

What is your backup situation at home?

What is your backup situation at home? And if you don't do that, why not? Every single day, I read multiple threads here of "How do I get my stuff back?" or "That drive had 5 years of photos of my kids!!" Be it a dead drive, dropped phone, virus, accidental deletion, formatting the wrong...

forums.tomshardware.com

The main concept is to not have you data subject to a single drive or volume. No matter how much.

 

[athleticmistud]

ok i agree. is a solid state drive better than a spinning disk?

 

[USAFRet]

ok i agree. is a solid state drive better than a spinning disk?

For backups, no.
Speed doesn't matter so much as size+budget.

8TB HDD for $190, 8TB SSD for $750.

(hdd prices have gone up recently)

 

[cryoburner]

Just remember to not "only" keep files on the backup drive, otherwise it's not actually a backup. For reasonable protection against data loss from a failed drive, any files that you feel are not worth losing should be stored on at least two drives. That way, if one fails, any important data on it should still be available on the other. There is the possibility that something like a natural disaster or theft could result in both drives being lost though, so having another copy of the data stored off-site at another location might also be worth considering.

Of course, any easily-replaceable data, such as games downloaded from Steam or whatever, is probably less worth backing up, and you might be able to get away with less backup storage if you only back up data that would be irreplaceable, or at least difficult to replace.

Also, you ideally shouldn't span drives, using RAID 0 or whatever. That's generally a bad idea as it increases your chances of losing more of your data. Keeping drives as their own separate partitions will ensure that a failure of any one drive should only affect the files stored on that drive. As long as you sort certain groups of data to certain drives, you also likely won't have much more trouble finding files compared to using a single partition.

8TB HDD for $190, 8TB SSD for $750.

(hdd prices have gone up recently)

A 6TB external drive might also be a bit better value than the 8TB models if you don't expect the extra space to be needed any time soon. There are a few 6TB models available for around $125, which in terms of price-per-GB is around 10% less than the typical pricing for the 8TB versions of those drives...

https://pcpartpicker.com/products/external-hard-drive/#A=6000000000000&sort=price&page=1

Sales on certain drives could potentially change that though. And 4TB external drives are also an option, if you really don't think you will need that much storage, and those can by found for a little under $100.

 

[USAFRet]

A 6TB external drive might also be a bit better value than the 8TB models if you don't expect the extra space to be needed any time soon. There are a few 6TB models available for around $125, which in terms of price-per-GB is around 10% less than the typical pricing for the 8TB versions of those drives...

4-6-8-12TB....whatever works for the budget and required size.

When I bought the linked Seagate 8TB HDD in 2019, it was $140.


Whatever works, as long as what is on it is not the only copy.

 

[athleticmistud]

/.

yes i learned that the hard way. dont use raid for spanned drives or span anything got it! i ended up getting a 4 tb seagate for $84 on amazon so that will hold all my saved data and should work thank god