Rapid Storage Technology
Intel® RST, RAID

RAID drive serial numbers.

idata
Employee
3,981 Views

I have 2 WD2002FAEX in a RAID 0 on an Asus P67 Sabertooth.

Last week one of the 2 was marked as failed by the controller during boot, and by IRST. Put the drive in another computer, and cloned it to a new WD.

After the clone the controller marked it as offline and Windows bluescreened during boot. Switching to a different SATA port marked it as unknown and allowed Windows to boot. IRST marked it as Unknown again, and would not accept it as part of the Raid because the serial numbers were different.

I used someone's home written app to edit the serial number of the clone drive to the match the serial number of the original. The controller and IRST now accept it as part of the RAID, and 5 minutes of chkdsk fixed a few issues, recovered some files, and all/most of my data appears in tact.

I now have 2 drives with the same serials, and will have to restore the clone to the original serial once the old is RMA'd. And then clone it back again.

Is there not a better way to go about getting the controller/IRST to accept this drive as a replacement for the old without having to edit the serials in the firmware??

0 Kudos
9 Replies
FSnyd
Beginner
1,890 Views

Hey how ya doing?

I know that WD2002FAEX are NOT supported for raided environments. WD and Intel both recommend ENTERPRISE level hard drives.

It has something to do with the error time out detection of WD Caviar Black hard Drives. The Polling takes to long for the RAID cntroller, and it therefore marks it down as failed, when the drive is actually in good health. You can choose ignore, and or mark as normal and your RAId will function how it suppose to.

Data sheet from Western Digital :

http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=100 http://www.wdc.com/en/products/products.aspx?id=100

They are tested used for consumer based raid levels. But Sabertooth uses an Enterprise Level Raid Controller ( I own the same board), therefore WD2002FAEX will not be supported or recommended.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,890 Views

Also Enterprise drives are specially tested and "24/7 demands of professional RAID enviroments." They're just better that way. The non enterprise drives are not non-RAID compatiable. They're perfectly acceptable for home RAID setups. The difference is the hardware is more reliable, more resilient to 24/7 demand. This is home use. As mine are enthusiast home use, they're not in use 24/7.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,890 Views

openair,

My apologies, I missed the RAID 0 indication at the beginning of your post and assumed, since you were attempting to clone one of the drives, that you were working with a RAID 1. We know with RAID 0, if any drive fails, the data is lost.

John

0 Kudos
FSnyd
Beginner
1,890 Views

Well, it seems like what you did with the third party software has your issue fixed. As far as I know, talking 10+ yrs in the field, a RAID 0 is a death trap, and you have successfully came out of it. I know of no Intel, or western digital sponsored way of rebuilding a RAID 0, what you did was absolutely fine. As long as it work and you got back your data, you yourself have fixed the issue.

I apologize, I also missed the fact that you yourself have fixed the issue. Thank you. Have a great day.

Message was edited by: Frank Snyder

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,890 Views

My data is not lost.

My data is fine.

By cloning the drive and editing the serial, i have recovered all my data.

The ONLY issue is i had to edit serial numbers to do it. And now have 2 drives with the same serial. If i could instead edit the serial expected by the controller/IRST i would not have this issue...

So no suggestions how to resolve issues like this by editting ~16 bits of RAID metadata, that would not ever affect an RMA process, rather then potentially voiding my HDDs warranties?

0 Kudos
FSnyd
Beginner
1,890 Views

Well nobody said your data was lost. In fact, quite the opposite...I said you did good. Now please, what are you looking for? Intel nor Western Digital Offer any assistance with a FAILED RAID 0. 95% of the people who use a RAID 0 use it for performance and with non-critical data (Gaming, CAD Station, etc) Where the data is being backed up by a 3rd party source, Acronis, Windows Image Backup, etc.

What you did exceeded what any normal person would be able to do. Good job. Now please, drop the attitude, and accept this as an answer:

There is NO 3rd PARTY RAID 0 recover assistance available that is FREE,

Good day sir.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,890 Views

Yes, John@intel in his last post did say if any drive fails the data is lost. I was simply stating again, as in my orginal post, that my data is already recovered and intact. From my point of view the only attitude here is from you two who failed to read my posts twice and continue to miss the real question.

I do not need recovery assistance. I simply need a way to edit the serial expected by IRST by editing the RAID metadata, rather then edit my HDDs firmware and voiding my HDDs warranties.

I also find it very curious how you (simply a customer of intel, by your post history) finds it necessary to judge me for my reply to someone else (an @intel poster). Please notice the reply to tags.

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,890 Views

openair,

Sounds like a complicated way to replace a failed disk. There are recovery methods with IRST.

You could have just replaced the failed disk drive then, if you couldn't boot to the operating system, in the BIOS configuration it should report that both a "Degraded" volume and disk available for rebuilding, a Degraded Volume Detected window will pop up, asking for selecting a disk to initiate a rebuild.

If you could boot to the OS:

1. Open the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology user interface. After the operating system is running, click Intel® Rapid Storage Technology in the start menu or right-click the Intel Rapid Storage Technology tray icon and click Intel® Rapid Storage Technology.

 

2. Click Rebuild to another disk.

 

3. Select the new hard drive.

 

4. Click Rebuild.

John

0 Kudos
idata
Employee
1,890 Views

@Frank: They worked fine for 8 months. They work fine now. Only issue is the two drives with the same serial number. This is also only home use.

@John: Degraded and rebuilding would only work with a RAID 1, 5, ect, something with parity. RAID0 has no parity. "Just replaced the failed disk" would havfe removed 50% of the data, with no parity to rebuild it...

0 Kudos
Reply