XP out of commission- RAID problem?

tromba

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I have a homebuilt machine (e6600 cpu, Gigabyte GA-954P-S3, 4 gig RAM, two 250 gig SATA HD's on RAID-1, two other 300 gig HD's on IDE). Last night I was using remote desktop to this machine from home, the connection broke and I couldn't get back on. This morning the machine was running but nothing was on the screen. Not knowing if it was the KVM or something, I rebooted and first error was from the RAID (on board) that there was an error (when I later went into setup for that it was something about Members(HDDx)). THe machine kept going past this until NTDRL was missing.

Of all the searching I did on this error, most came about upgrading/installing and that kind of stuff. This, however, was a system that worked fine yesterday and with no changes didn't work today (but I understand there WAS a Windows update last night)

None of my searches turned up anything with RAID and NTDRL -- I know they are different things, but I didn't know what to try because I do have the RAID.

If I unplugged either drive and tried to start the machine, it got past the NTDRL error and Windows screen came up, then the screen went blank prior to the sign-on screen.

I figured my first step would be to fix the RAID problem. In the RAID setup I selected to fix the problem (sorry I can't recall the exact wording), selected the drive (it was selected for me at the bottom of the screen RDD0), then it gave me a choice of which drive to use and the other drive would have all the data destroyed. Sorry I can't be more specific here, but this was all new and I didn't write it down exactly. After this finished it said to rebuild the mirror, which I did.

Now there are no RAID errors and I don't get the NTDRL error, but the machine won't go anywhere and I get a message that I some windows system files are missing or corrupt and I need to put in the install disk and type r to get the repair console:

Windows XP could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: \WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM

I did that and just got a C: prompt. Typing Dir or C: just gives and error that there might be an unrecoverable error on the drive.

At this point I removed both the IDE drives, tried them on another machine in an external case, and both appear fine.

A search on this problem got to a MS knowledge base article that it might be a registry problem http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307545. I can't follow through on that article because when I try and type anything at the cmd prompt, I get access denied.

Next I put a Knoppix disk in and could see the three partitions on each of the two RAID drives. It appears all the stuff is still there.

Now I'm stuck on what to do next. Any suggestions?
 

SomeJoe7777

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C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CONFIG\SYSTEM is the Windows registry. If it's corrupted, it's virtually impossible to repair. And even if you do repair it, if it's missing entries, then at the very least a lot of software on the machine will have problems.

Since the drive is readable, recover all important files to another drive (your 300s if they have space), blank the two 250 SATAs, re-setup the RAID, reinstall Windows and all software.

Then get some image backup software and weekly image your C: to your other drives to enable a quick recovery just for things like this.
 

tromba

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That's what I was afraid I'd have to do....

How can I recover anything? I can't get into the machine except to see the drives through Knoppix. Is there some kind of Live CD that can read and then write to drives? Since I moved out the two 300 gig drives I can hook them up external USB. The 300's are IDE and the RAIDs are SATA -- I don't have any external SATA connections... maybe I can borrow one.

This brings to mind the question of RAID in the first place. I know it's not the same as backup, and I do daily backups of all my data. As I understand it, RAID-1 protects me against a hard drive going bad because as a mirror I'd still have an operating one. Seems like I might be better off NOT using RAID and using the 2nd 250 gig drive for images. Is there software that can do daily images like I currently do daily backups?

Is there any way to know the cause of all this? RAID gone bad?
 

SomeJoe7777

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I'm assuming your RAID-1 was set up on the Intel ICH on your Gigabyte motherboard.

I've always been very suspicious of the Intel RAID, as it seems that a lot of people have had problems with it. A lot of times its circumstances very similar to yours -- the RAID was working just fine for months and then all of a sudden something glitches and corrupts the RAID for absolutely no reason. I've seen reports of this behavior with all OS's, but Vista seems especially prone. (What works properly on Vista anyway?)

To recover your data, you'll need to put one of the 250 drives in another computer and move the files to one of your 300s. (Advantage of RAID 1 - the drives are normally readable individually).

Free image backup software that you can schedule to do daily or weekly backups: DriveImage XML. DriveImage XML works, but requires some know-how of the command line in order to schedule your backups, and some knowledge of how to use a BartPE CD in order to do a recovery.

Commercial image backup software that does everything for you: Acronis TrueImage.
 

arson94

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onboard controllers are not dependable. they are nice when they work, but eventually the controller doesn't know whether to **** or go blind; usually does both. I have a Silicon Image RAID controller onboard on my motherboard and I eventually stopped using it because of issues like this. The computer would be as healthy as a damn horse and one day it just corrupts itself and I lose everything, I was using RAID-0... But, I always store documents on other phsyical disks and just use my RAID for Windows and programs. However, I'm an avid user or www.slickdeals.net and you're in luck my friend. Currently, you can acquire a free legal copy of Paragon Hard Disk Manager 8 Special Edition. Visit the following link for the info -

http://forums.slickdeals.net/showthread.php?t=830991

I did it a while back and I've used a couple of times and it has worked great the times that I have needed it. You can do all kinds of **** with it. If you just use you're mirror drive you had in the RAID to store your documents and what-nots on it and have only your OS and programs on the primary drive then you'll be a much happy camper. Just take a base image once you've installed your OS, all drivers, all updates, and any programs you'll want to install EVERY time and be done. When you need to reinstall Windows, just revert back to the base image and reinstall all updates and programs you want at the time. It never hurts to have a fresh install a couple of times a year anyway to keeps things fresh. Also, since your drives were in a RAID-1 then you should just be able to slave either of those bitches into another machine or the same machine after a fresh install of Windows and natively read all data on either drive. Don't worry about the RAID, it's typically **** anyway unless you have a high-dollar third party RAID card. Even RAID-0 you won't notice any performance increases on those onboard RAID controllers.

Hope that helps, and Good Luck!

--Arson94
 

tromba

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Thanks for that tip. I got the serial number and learned about slickdeals!!

I think I'm going to dump the RAID and just image plus my daily data backup.
 

arson94

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Dude, slickdeals.net is a freakin godsend. I love that damn website. I've saved so much money and you'll find deals you never would have before. The Hot Deals section will be your favorite, it's fan-freakin-tastic. But yea, I'd just use one drive for OS and programs and another drive for data. Not just data backup, but I store my data only on the other seperate drive. So much easier and cleaner. And, if Windows crashes for some reason, you simply don't have to worry about backing up your data. If you keep your only copy on the seperate drive then you don't even have to worry about if your backups are current or not. It's just easier and less stress lol. Glad I could help. You'll thank me for slickdeals more than you'll thank me for the advice and free copy of Paragon, I promise ya lol. Enjoy man.

--Arson94