BIG RAID 1 problem

[JNagl]

Chris,

Do you remember me? I submitted a support request last weekend and you moved me from your group to the non-enterprise RST forum. Well they have not even bothered to reply after all these days. I also posted a request in the Chipset forum but they say in order to reverse what the Intel software did I should contact Microsoft. Pretty shocking isn't it. I followed the instructions of an Intel employee on this topic - . And the response from Intel is go to Microsoft for help. I have asked the person in the Chipset forum to pass my case to someone that has more knowledge (and more pride in the company they work for). You are really the only one who has responded in what I consider an appropriate manner. What good is the non-enterprise RST forum if they never respond. What good is an Intel employee who says go to another company to fix the damage Intel software caused. Why does Intel think Microsoft will take the time to reverse engineer the RST software, find out what it does when resetting RAID 1 disks to non-raid, and then tell me how to correct the problem the Intel software caused. Can you help?

Regards,

Jeff

[idata]

Hi jeff399

Thank you for bringing this matter to the Intel® RST Community.

I have sent you a private message, please check your inbox.

Regards,

Amy C.

[JNagl]

Hello Amy,

I have checked my email and I have no message from you. I checked my Inbox, Spam, Promotions, and Trash folders. Could you please send it again or just post it in the forum. I also have a secondary email address. It is "mailto:jeffjb2@gmail.com jeffjb2@gmail.com". You could try sending your message to that address also.

I don't know how my case got to you. I started it about a month and a half ago as you can see. I originally posted into the RST Enterprise forum and Chris moved my case to your forum, but that was many weeks ago.

At the same time I also posted my case in the Chipset forum. According to Alberto R. who works for Intel and contacted me in the Chipset forum this case has already been escalated. However that was over a month ago and there has been no word back yet. I guess there are so many problems that the Intel Chipset tech staff is completely overwhelmed. So hopefully there is less of a problem backlog in your section. I suggest you read my case messages in the Chipset forum to get even more details. Maybe Alberto was just lying and my case was not escalated. He has ignored my messages for the past 3 weeks asking for a status update. Possibility some work has already been done on my case so you should probably check with Alberto

The crux of the matter is that I followed the instructions of an Intel employee named Allan in an Intel forum. Here is a link to his post -

In Allan's post he writes "Next step is select drives you want to reset. You will get generic warning about : all data will be gone" but this is fine, this is just generic message. For RAID 1, this will not happen." As you can see when you read his post there is no statement about applicable or non-applicable circumstances. It simply says this is what happens when you reset a Raid 1 array. That is what I did and now I cannot access the data even though Allan said "this will not happen". It did and now I am in trouble.

So far it seems there is little appreciation at Intel for how important some files may be to their customers. Allan's post might wrong and there are certain circumstances where you can follow his instructions and some where if you do you will lose your data. Maybe the problem is a bug. I don't know. But if Intel is concerned about its customers they will look into this right away. Allan's post should be changed if it is wrong. But to leave it as-is creates the potential for other Intel customers to follow his instructions and be harmed.

Thanks,

Jeff

[idata]

Thank you Jeff.

Yes, I am aware of your case, and regarding the origin of it and can let you know that thread you have with Alberto is currently being reviewed. I checked myself and it still being reviewed, my apologies for the delay. At this stage I could not get any updates regarding this review, but I am aware that as soon as we have more information about it we will update the thread and inform you. This is basically what my private message indicated, it was sent but I am sorry I did reach your inbox.

Regards,

Amy C.

[JNagl]

Hi Amy C.,

It has been a couple of weeks since your last message. I really need for something to happen. I have been trying to get an answer on my case for 2 months now. I have never had a problem with Intel over the many years I have been a customer. And it has been many years, since the 80286. Is this kind of wait period to get any word back common at Intel? After 2 months do they at least have an estimate as to when I might be able to access my data again? Intel is killing my Ho-Ho-Ho spirit with this long delay on files that are very important to me and my family.

Thanks and Merry Christmas,

Jeff

[idata]

My apologies for the inconvenience.

As mentioned before thread you have with Alberto is currently being reviewed. We still don't have updates regarding it.

Please stay with /thread/119051 Intel RST problem, more information will be posted there as soon as possible.

Regards,

Amy C.

[JNagl]

Amy,

I finally got a reply from the other forum but it is was not what I think either of us hoped it would be.

Thanks for your help,

Jeff

[JNagl]

Amy,

Thank you for your previous concern but I now request you allow me to speak with your supervisor. As you know I raised my issue last October and now it is February of the following year. While you have tried your best it does not seem you have the :"juice" to get my problem resolved. I need my data back. I have waited patiently the past several months but it is getting me nowhere. Surely I deserve to be escalated after enduring this long wait with no results. What also gets to me is the apparent disregard that Intel has for its customers. The forum post by the Intel employee that I used to guide me is the number one google listing for "intel rst break raid 1" even now (I just checked it!). How many other Intel customers are at risk of losing their data because of this still unresolved issue (bug). But that seems to be of little importance.

Regards,

Jeff

[JNagl]

Amy,

On last thing. I just now saw that this case is "assumed answered". I take this as a clue that the time this case has taken exceeds the resolution time limit given by Intel management. All the more reason why it should be escalated because it is most definitely not answered even at this late date.

Regards,

Jeff

[JJaeg]

Wow, tough situation. Having watched an organization lose data (terrabytes worth) due to bad advice from a hardware engineer many years ago, I feel for you. Unfortunately, it sounds like you didn't make a backup of some sort before you tried to break the array (say with freeware Clonezilla or one of the commercial products like NovaBackup or Acronis).

Because this is a community forum, and not formal corporate support, there is not any escalation process that I am aware of. (I do not work for Intel!)

Here is what I would suggest you could try - and it may or may not work.

1. Use Clonezilla (boots from a CD for flash drive) to make an image of both of your drives, as they are. You will, of course, need something big enough for the backup, such as an external USB drive. Clonezilla can do a block by block copy ("dd") even if it cannot recognize the underlying file system because (I suppose) of some RAID metadata. Do this so that no matter what you won't be any worse off than you are now. Link: http://www.clonezilla.org/ Clonezilla - About

[By the way, there is actually a chance that Clonezilla (it is Linux based) may recognize the drive as an array member, and be able to figure out the file systems on it, allowing you to back them up and restore them.]

2. Remove one of the two original drives, as a precaution - for the same reason. You always want to make sure that you never get worse off then where you are now.

3. Set your BIOS for at least the controller that the remaining drive is using to RAID mode.

4. If you uninstalled the RAID drivers (RST), then reinstall them.

5. Reboot, run the Disk Manager (diskmgmt) and see if it recognizes the drive at all, and the file system within.

6. If so, then make a backup (see above), break the array (in the user interface or the BIOS), reformat the drive, and restore your data. If you use a commercial product, you will probably want to use image mode ("disaster recovery backup") rather than normal file mode backup, so that when you restore it, you won't end up with file dates set to the date of the restore.

7. If not, then you might try one of the various RAID recovery software packages to see if one of them will help you get your data back. (Google for something like "getting data back from raid array").

[JNagl]

cube1us2,

Thanks for your advice. I will keep it handy. I am still hoping that Intel will solve the bug inside of RST as others may get sucked into my situation. Previously I had no idea Intel would risk their customers data in such a cavalier manner by ignoring what appears to be a bug that has been brought to their attention. It seems they are in no rush to solve this bug. I was told months ago that Intel will review my case. When that actually happens is anybody's guess.

[AlHill]

I am not an Intel employee, but I have some good advice.

Having RAID, in any form, does not mean you should not have a backup/restore plan, especially for circumstances like yours.

Doc