Broken RAID 0 after firmware update - Repair How-To

[idata]

I was running a RAID0 array with two X25-V drives, one with firmware 02HB and the other with the newest 02HD. I have been having some problems with the system, so I decided to update the other drive. I disabled RAID on my motherboard (which uses P45/ICH10R chips), enabled Legacy SATA mode, and powered down. I then booted to the update disc, it found both drives, said one drive's firmware was current, and asked if I wanted to update the other one. About 30 seconds after initializing the update, it reported that it had succeeded and the update was verified. I then powered down again, and after a few minutes entered the BIOS, switched RAID and Native SATA mode back on. The Matrix BIOS now reports the array as failed, and the drive that was updated is not marked as being part of an array.

I do understand that there was a risk of something happening, but I don't understand this. The update is non-destructive, so why would it change the array info on that disk? Or is the ICH10R simply not detecting it, maybe because of the changed version info? Either way, what a let-down. This was supposed to work OK, and while I haven't lost any data, I wasn't counting on having to do a complete reinstallation right-this-second. What's stranger is, I can't seem to find any other reports of this happening. Maybe I'm not using the right keywords, but you would think that having been around since late 2009 there would be plenty of them if it was a common issue with this update/updater.

From the brief information I've found so far, it's supposedly not possible to downgrade the firmware on these drives, so that's out. Is there anything else I can try before I wipe them and start all over?

[edit: see post 3 for solution]

[idata]

If the data on the disk itself was untouched, you should be able to rebuild the array. The RAID metadata is on the disk itself. i.e. You can take an array from a ICH9R controller and rebuild it on a ICH10R fine.

Pure speculation but it maybe the disk is no longer the "registered" member of the array?

[idata]

@DuckieHo: Indeed. I did come across suggestions that it may be possible to repair the array from the Matrix/RST console, but since the broken array held the OS the above solution was much faster than installing Windows on another drive to find out. Since the iMSM BIOS does not include any options to alter an existing array, it would be good to know whether RST can do this - but unfortunately the available documentation does not go beyond using the software when there are not any problems. I ran into the same issue replacing a working but "degraded" drive earlier in this same system - simply setting the replacement as a spare drive in RST caused the bad drive to be copied and ejected from the array. While this might seem like expected functionality to someone experienced with using RAID arrays, it doesn't seem like a good idea to skip documentation of procedures which are not normally available!

[MFusi]

I am having trouble I need some help with.

I have an Asrock Extreme4 Z87 mobo with a 4770k i7. It was working good and I installed windows 7 x64 onto an SSD drive in ACHI mode. I later decided I wanted to build a 9TB scratch disk RAID 0 array of 3 drives x 3TB 7200rpm Toshiba drives. I booted into BIOS and changed from ACHI to RAID mode and build the array. But when windows booted it BSOD on me, I assumed it was an ACHI thing. So I changed back from RAID mode to ACHI mode in the BIOS and amazingly my RAID 0 drive showed up at 9TB drive. I formatted and used it.

Recently my system has developed some slow lagging and hang up on the first BIOS screen. I thought it might be the mobo so I flashed the BIOS to the newest version for my motherboard. That went fine. But my RAID 0 array was lost.

I have a bunch of posts with screen shots in one of my threads on AVS forum for my server (but this is my desktop)

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1438027/mfusicks-how-to-build-an-affordable-30tb-flexraid-media-server-inf... post_24469704 http://www.avsforum.com/t/1438027/mfusicks-how-to-build-an-affordable-30tb-flexraid-media-server-inf... post_24469704

I have clean installed windows 7 x64 in RAID mode thinking that would fix my problem. It did not.

I blew out the old array and rebuilt it exactly the same but still windows did not see it. I have not formatted or changed anything on my hard drives.

I need some help rebuilding this array and recovering my data! please help!

[Jose_H_Intel1]

You may want to follow the steps from post number 6 (adamsap) here: http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?p=3329132 http://forums.extremeoverclocking.com/showthread.php?p=3329132

I believe it is similar to the above post by TGentry but I cannot guarantee the result since it is something we just found over the internet.