Rebuilding a RAID 0

[WildCat]

I have a RAID 0 (mirroring) array in my computer, which is fortunate because one of the drives failed last week. Since the brand of HD I had (Maxtor) seems to have a propensity for failure, I decided to replace them (both were 120 GB) w/ new 250 GB Seagate drives instead. So today I installed the first Seagate drive and rebuilt the array successfully. I then removed the other Maxtor drive and installed the second new Seagate and rebuilt the array again. All is working fine, except my capacity is still listed as 120 GB. So my question is if there is a way to get the full 250 GB capacity of the new drive, or am I stuck w/ 120?

 

[American]

You'd certainly get a fast and accurate answer posting in ArsTechnica forums. More replies than you want, probably.

 

[ShowMe]

I have a RAID 0 (mirroring) array in my computer, which is fortunate because one of the drives failed last week. Since the brand of HD I had (Maxtor) seems to have a propensity for failure, I decided to replace them (both were 120 GB) w/ new 250 GB Seagate drives instead. So today I installed the first Seagate drive and rebuilt the array successfully. I then removed the other Maxtor drive and installed the second new Seagate and rebuilt the array again. All is working fine, except my capacity is still listed as 120 GB. So my question is if there is a way to get the full 250 GB capacity of the new drive, or am I stuck w/ 120?

I'm guessing the RAID array set itself to 120 GB when you put that drive in it. Your best bet would be to use something like Symantec's Ghost to ghost the 120 GB drive to the 250 GB drive, then mirror the second 250 GB drive.

I'm sure there are other ways to do it but that's my 2 cents.

 

[I less than three logic]

What are you using as your RAID controller? Also, what OS are you running? If you’re in XP Pro it could be as simple as converting to dynamic storage and simply extending the volume. If you’re still in basic storage, i.e. disk partitions, you may be able to create another partition to hold the remaining disk space. Of course, if your using a hardware RAID controller and it is only reporting a single 120 Gig drive to the OS, these easy fixes won’t work.

 

[WildCat]

What are you using as your RAID controller? Also, what OS are you running? If you’re in XP Pro it could be as simple as converting to dynamic storage and simply extending the volume. If you’re still in basic storage, i.e. disk partitions, you may be able to create another partition to hold the remaining disk space. Of course, if your using a hardware RAID controller and it is only reporting a single 120 Gig drive to the OS, these easy fixes won’t work.

It's the RAID controller that came w/ my Asus P4B533-E motherboard and I'm using XP Pro.

 

[kevin]

RAID 0 is NOT a mirror. It's a stripe with no redundancy of data and would be unrecoverable (without a lot of money) in this situation. RAID 1 is a mirror.

Are you sure you mirrored your data?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#RAID_0

 

[I less than three logic]

RAID 0 is NOT a mirror. It's a stripe with no redundancy of data and would be unrecoverable (without a lot of money) in this situation. RAID 1 is a mirror.

Are you sure you mirrored your data?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#RAID_0

I believe he was, in fact, using mirroring (RAID 1) since he appears to have all the data still. The problem seems to be the RAID controller is reporting an incorrect disk size.

I think I know what the problem is, WildCat. You’re using one of those evil Intel… things. They’re with them, you know!

Ok, joking aside. I’m also on an ASUS board, a K8V model built for an AMD, but probably not too dissimilar from yours. Shortly after the POST once you start the machine, or right after the boot up picture disappears if you’re using the ASUS Logo feature, you should have the option to hit the ‘F’ key to view your RAID controller configuration menu. Have you looked in there to see what the RAID controller is detecting for your disk size? If it says only 120 in there, then there is little you can do from the software perspective. If it is reading the full 250 for the disk size, then I believe your problem is that the data on the mirror disk also contained the disk partition information, which was partitioned to a 120 Gig size. This should be easily correctable in the disk manager in XP Pro, either by creating a new partition or by extending the volume (dynamic storage only).

 

[ShowMe]

This should be easily correctable in the disk manager in XP Pro, either by creating a new partition or by extending the volume (dynamic storage only).

I've never had very good luck manipulating disks with the built-in Windows disk management utilities. Could just be a couple of bad coincidences but I lost the disk both times so I tend to go with something third party these days.

 

[scribble]

It's probably NOT his controller or the size of the drives being reported to the OS.

It's almost certainly his partition, which is 120G and has no reason to change itself -- unlike the drive size which is usually autodetected at boot, the partition size will not change without manual intervention.

There are utilities which allow you to resize NTFS partitions (I assume you're on NTFS) but I have only used the fabulous and free parted, which has wonky support for ntfs since it's so proprietary (and stupid [NTFS, not parted]). So I'm not sure if it's possible there.

Another alternative would be to create a second partition using the remainder of the space, which will cause it to appear as another drive letter in Windows.

The suggestion above from "I less than three logic" about converting to "dynamic storage" and resizing also sounds great -- sounds like Windows equivalent of LVM, which makes it a lot easier to grow and shrink partitions "on-the-fly."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_(computing)
(Edited to add -- that's not a particularly helpful link... sorry)

 

[WildCat]

I believe he was, in fact, using mirroring (RAID 1) since he appears to have all the data still. The problem seems to be the RAID controller is reporting an incorrect disk size.

I think I know what the problem is, WildCat. You’re using one of those evil Intel… things. They’re with them, you know!

Ok, joking aside. I’m also on an ASUS board, a K8V model built for an AMD, but probably not too dissimilar from yours. Shortly after the POST once you start the machine, or right after the boot up picture disappears if you’re using the ASUS Logo feature, you should have the option to hit the ‘F’ key to view your RAID controller configuration menu. Have you looked in there to see what the RAID controller is detecting for your disk size? If it says only 120 in there, then there is little you can do from the software perspective. If it is reading the full 250 for the disk size, then I believe your problem is that the data on the mirror disk also contained the disk partition information, which was partitioned to a 120 Gig size. This should be easily correctable in the disk manager in XP Pro, either by creating a new partition or by extending the volume (dynamic storage only).

Oops, yes it is a RAID 1, mirroring. I always get those mixed up!

If I go to the "FastBuild utility" and select "view array" it lists it as 122 GB, when I select "view drive assignments" it lists both discs as 250 GB. So does this mean I just need to create a new partition or extend the volume in XP? What does "dynamic storage only" mean?

 

[I less than three logic]

Oops, yes it is a RAID 1, mirroring. I always get those mixed up!

If I go to the "FastBuild utility" and select "view array" it lists it as 122 GB, when I select "view drive assignments" it lists both discs as 250 GB. So does this mean I just need to create a new partition or extend the volume in XP? What does "dynamic storage only" mean?

Ok, it seems your RAID array is still set up as 120 GB array, and this is what it is telling your OS your drive size is. This is easy to fix. Simply enter your FastBuild utility, delete the array that is there and create a new array as the full 250 GB. Don't worry, this doesn't format nor partition the drives. That must be done elsewhere. That should get your controller to report the correct size of the total array for you.

ETA - In XP pro you can use basic storage or dynamic storage on your disks. This is how it allocates different sizes to partitions (basic) or volumes (dynamic). The partitions or volumes are then assigned drive letters. For example the C: drive or G: drive. Dynamic storage is useful in that, as scribble said, you can change the size "on the fly". You can simply extend or shrink the volume, even across multiple disks. Partitions are harder to work with and must be deleted (loses the data) in order to be changed. Although, dynamic storage in Windows isn't without its drawbacks, as most things in Windows. Should you use the dynamic storage for your drives, you'll lose the ability to boot multiple OS on those drives. They will become Windows only.

 

[WildCat]

Ok, it seems your RAID array is still set up as 120 array, and this is what it is telling your OS your drive size is. This is easy to fix. Simply enter your FastBuild utility, delete the array that is there and create a new array as the full 250 GB. Don't worry, this doesn't format nor partition the drives. That must be done elsewhere. That should get your controller to report the correct size of the total array for you.

Now before I do that, it won't delete any of my data? Just want to make sure!

 

[I less than three logic]

Now before I do that, it won't delete any of my data? Just want to make sure!

Don't follow my directions just yet. I think I may have been leading you to trouble. Give me some time to look this up. I think as long as you don't initialize the new array you'll be ok, but I'm not 100% and don't want to cause any harm.

 

[WildCat]

Don't follow my directions just yet. I think I may have been leading you to trouble. Give me some time to look this up. I think as long as you don't initialize the new array you'll be ok, but I'm not 100% and don't want to cause any harm.

Thanks, I'll wait for your reply.

 

[I less than three logic]

Sorry for the long wait. I found a place that may be able to offer some better answers, the VIA forums. Since they’re the ones that the promise RAID controller is from, they seem to know many of the answers. This thread may be useful; it is about data loss when deleting arrays. I’d probably post a question about your specific problem though.

 

[WildCat]

Sorry for the long wait. I found a place that may be able to offer some better answers, the VIA forums. Since they’re the ones that the promise RAID controller is from, they seem to know many of the answers. This thread may be useful; it is about data loss when deleting arrays. I’d probably post a question about your specific problem though.

Thanks, I'll try that after I make dinner.

I have an 80 GB OTG drive I can back up my "My Documents" and other folders on, but I'm trying to avoid having to re-load all my software and then all the updates. That can take days!

 

[I less than three logic]

Thanks, I'll try that after I make dinner.

I have an 80 GB OTG drive I can back up my "My Documents" and other folders on, but I'm trying to avoid having to re-load all my software and then all the updates. That can take days!

Yeah, I know how losing your data sucks. I had a similar situation before, where a drive on my RAID crapped out. Only I was on a RAID 0, lost everything on there. Had to put it all back, well what I could at least.

 

[WildCat]

No one has answered me yet at the other forum, so if anyone here has some ideas I'm all ears!

 

[stormer]

Not free
How about using something like Norton PartitionMagic?

I have successfully used the software to re-partition my hard drives without re-installing Windows. Of course they recommend that you back up your data in case something goes wrong, but what the hay, live dangerously!

What you do is to boot from the PartitionMagic CD, and then modify the partitions with the built in utility.

The problem with this approach is that PartitionMagic must have the drivers for the RAID chipset that you are using. If it does not, it will not be able to recognize the array, and you are out of luck.

Free
Your other option is to use BartPE and install the plugin DriveImageXML. This allows you to make a complete image of your hard disk to the external disk that you have.

This setup supposedly can re-image to a larger hard disk, but I have not attempted this. You make the current image, then re-partition the drives in the RAID firmware, format, and finally restore the image back to the larger hard disk.

Again the problem would be if BartPE does not have the drivers for the RAID chipset, you will not be able to recognize your hard disk. Thing is, BartPE boots up like Windows, so it has that "Press F6 if you need to load a driver" message. This means that the driver should be able to be loaded and so problem solved.

I personally think you have a good chance of doing it with BartPE. I have no ties to any of the software listed, but I have used them and they have helped. BartPE with DriveImageXML is now my chosen 15 minute re-installation method for Windows. (Bye Ghost!) One clean install was saved and used every 6 months to restore Windows back to a pristine state. Never have to worry about Windows slowing down because of registry bloat.

 

[MortFurd]

Stormer gives the usual method for increasing the size of an array.

1. Make an image using Ghost or other similar program (costs $$.)
2. Destroy array and create new one.
3. Reinstall the image. Ghost and the other program give you the option to resize the image to fit the new partition when restoring.