RAID failure suggestions?

[David Bogie]

Call the RAID mfr immediately. You want to know what they suggest for remounting the errant drive. If you’re using software RAID, you’re pretty much toast.. Gather your production crew and begin discussions on how to implement your Worst Case Scenario Plan because it’s happened.

Here’s the problem: Your directory is striped across the RAID just like your data. If one of the drives has failed (or the data has otherwise been corrupted) half of your data is simply gone. There is no way to rebuild the system without a complete backup.

I’m not trying to pick on you personally but most RAID users who post here with their troubles have failed horribly to completely understand the risk tradeoffs of striped data and they are at a complete loss when something goes wrong.

I hope you can restore your drives with a few phone calls. Please keep us posted if you can and let us know what you did and whose RAID tools you are using. Your candor will help those who come after.

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Ric Shellhammer]

It’s a software RAID … done with Apple Disk Utility and I already know the risks. There was nothing on the RAID that couldn’t be reproduced …. luckily. The issue is Disk Utility won’t let me unmount/delete the raid. If I can do that, I can at least get use of the drive that’s working albeit not a RAID set.

ric

[David Roth weiss]

Disk Warrior might help, or it might not. If the OS is not able to sense the drives then no utility will help.

[Ric Shellhammer]

In Drive Utility I just found I can erase the one good drive in the RAID. Obviously no more RAID disk but got the one drive back. Thanks for the suggestions.

ric

[David Bogie]

> It’s a software RAID … done with Apple Disk Utility and I already know the risks. There was nothing on the RAID that couldn’t be reproduced …. luckily. The issue is Disk Utility won’t let me unmount/delete the raid. If I can do that, I can at least get use of the drive that’s working albeit not a RAID set.< Cool, like I said, try not to take it personally. RAID is a terribly misunderstood storage media around here. Since you have accepted the doom scenario, shut down, disconnect the drives, restart. Repair permissions (this seems to ease minds, dunno if it does anythign in this case). Shutdown. reconnect the bad drive. Restart and see if it mounts or if Disk Utility will see it. Do you have any other drive utilities at your disposal? Try them too. If it won't mount there's nothing you can do about it. Go buy another drive and restrip them. If it will mount and you have time, run every possible test and repair you can on it. Especially look for the SMART rating for the drive. Or you can hook the drive up to another Macintosh and run the utilities on it while you get back to work. bogiesan This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Ric Shellhammer]

Exactly what I did and had to bury the drive;) Thanks for the help.

ric