Raid 1 volume has vanished (thanks Marvell)

[Blackima]

TL;DR: The two physical drives in RAID 1 are absolutely fine, but the RAID controller itself has forgotten its configuration. Is there a safe way to recreate the RAID without losing the data, or should I just recover the data manually?

 

I have had two 4TB drives hooked up in Raid 1 (backup) configuration using my motherboard's on-board Marvell Raid controller, and it has been really stable the year I've had it.

This morning, however, I notice windows doesn't see my 4TB Raid volume anymore. Ah, one of the two drives must have failed. No worries, that's why I have RAID 1: I'll just boot into the RAID controller and rebuild

Restart the computer and CTRL+M to enter the Marvell RAID Controller configuration, and I am treated to this:

 

Great. Neither of the physical drives seem to have failed, but the on-board Marvell RAID Controller seems to have forgotten that it's meant to be running a RAID.

 

There are now two routes I can go down, and need your help in deciding:

1. Somehow get the Marvell controller to rebuild the array without losing the data; or
2. Use data recovery software to extract the data from either of the two drives, and bypass the RAID controller entirely

This is my "backup" set of drives containing all my work, photos and videos dating back as far as 2002, so there's a lot of sentimental and real value in that volume.  Because it was RAID 1 I figured it would be safe enough to act as my sole backup until I get hold of a NAS (whoops).  So It's really important that I don't do anything that risks losing all the data.  At the moment I'm in a good position because the data is still on the drives (but not accessible via native windows), but I don't want to end up wiping it in an attempt to get the RAID system back

 

So for option 1:

Would creating a "new" volume with the Marvell Controller be enough to get the RAID array back. Or would doing so wipe the data on both drives. There's no "recovery" option, because the Marvell Controller does not realise that there is a RAID to recover. And if I do create a new volume, is there a way to find out what the configuration used to be so I can match it?

 

For option 2:

Since this is RAID 1, and not anything more complex, the data is still on the drives and can be recovered by data recovery software. Windows is completely oblivious to the existence of volumes, and Computer Management shows the two drives as "unallocated":

 

I got a trial version of the first recovery program google showed me, GetDataBack Simple, to confirm that my data was still accessible, and it does look like I can get it all back that way:

 

The downside with that software is that I do need to pay $79 to unlock the feature to actually extract the data.  If that is the best option to get my data back safely, then I'm ok with doing that, but if there are other recovery solutions that you know of that are better, do let me know!  I'd rather use Windows-based software rather than live-CDs, just because I'd find it easier transferring the files, but happy to consider all options.

 

 

If anyone has insights into whether I should go down Option 1 or Option 2, and the best way of going about it I'd really appreciate it!

 

Incidentally, the timing of this RAID failure is unnervingly coincidental.  On my floor right now is my new NAS server that I started building this morning. I was building it to backup my computer on the off-chance that my computer's RAID 1 setup fails. I.e. the same day that my RAID 1 setup does fail. If that's not irony, I want to know what the right word is to describe that.

 

 

Here's specs that may be useful, but it's really just an issue with the RAID controller

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H

On-board RAID Controller: Marvell 88SE9172

RAID HDDs: 2x 4TB Hitachi 0S03356 Deskstar 7K4000

Boot Drive: 256GB Samsung 830 Series SSD

OS: Windows 7

 

Thanks for any help you can provide. And those just reading out of interest: remember kids, RAID 1 is great and all, but it is NOT a complete backup option - always have an offsite backup as well for your important data.

[+LogicalApex MVC]

Recreating the RAID usually doesn't do any harm. It is initializing that will wipe the existing drive data and be the most problematic.

 

At least, this is the case with the LSI controllers I'm used to using along with Intel's MegaRAID stuff.

 

I would say do this as a last resort. As even though I'm convinced it will work without a backup in place this is dangerous. If you can do a sector based drive backup and try it then this is the cheapest method of getting your data back.

 

Just never treat RAID like a backup and you're fine (though you mentioned this in your post so no need for me to repeat it anymore in depth).

[+BudMan MVC]

Sounds like to me he is treating raid 1 as backup.. That is the way I read this..

 

"I have had two 4TB drives hooked up in Raid 1 (backup) configuration"

"This is my "backup" set of drives containing all my work,"

"Because it was RAID 1 I figured it would be safe enough to act as my sole backup until I get hold of a NAS (whoops).  So It's really important that I don't do anything that risks losing all the data."

 

So to be honest we should prob go into great depth on why that is not the case, clearly this is just one of the many examples of the case showing that is NOT in fact a valid backup.  If this array was actually his "backup"  Why don't you just recreate the array and do a "backup" of your data from the original location?

 

Data that is the sole copy of that data is not backed up.. Be it you have it on your "backup" drive/array/nas whatever.. If it is a single copy its not backed up period!!

 

With the number of threads where people loose data without a valid backup.. We should prob have a daily posting of what a valid backup is, and how any level of raid be it 1, 5, 6, 10 is NOT a BACKUP!!!  I really don't have much experience in recovery type software because I have never really been a position to have to recover anything.  I just restore from actual backup if data is deleted/lost/etc

 

But LogicalApex is correct, recreating the array should not remove any data - not make sure you don't initialize the array or you would be completely out of luck trying to recover anything.  If it was me, and the software was showing that it could recover the data for $79  Question is where you going to recover the data too? That should be a easy choice.  Do you have another disk big enough to store what your recovering?  If not be stopping by the store today to get that disk.  You can then use that disk as your backup while you use your array as your working copy, etc.

[+Warwagon MVC]

But LogicalApex is correct, recreating the array should not remove any data - not make sure you don't initialize the array or you would be completely out of luck trying to recover anything.  If it was me, and the software was showing that it could recover the data for $79  Question is where you going to recover the data too? That should be a easy choice.  Do you have another disk big enough to store what your recovering?  If not be stopping by the store today to get that disk.  You can then use that disk as your backup while you use your array as your working copy, etc.

 

You made a good point, "do you have anything large enough to recover the data onto?" This has always been my concern when buying big drives. Which is why for every single large drive I buy, I buy a second one of the same size to back the first one onto to.

[Blackima]

Recreating the RAID usually doesn't do any harm. It is initializing that will wipe the existing drive data and be the most problematic.

 

Thanks a lot for your comment on initializing, LogicalApex. If I hadn't seen that I may well have wiped the whole array!

 

Anyway, so I managed to solve the problem.  Since I've seen this happen to other Marvell users, and since this thread appears on the first page of google for marvell raid failures at the moment, I figured I'd put down what I did to get it working so it may help people in the future. The "solution" is specific to the easy case of a RAID 1 controller failure - I imagine it will be much harder with more sophisticated RAID types, but software does seem to exist for those.

 

Step 1: Manually recover data.

The best case scenario is to have the two drives up and running again as RAID 1 as though nothing had happened.  That may be possible, but when fiddling around it's always best to be prepared for the worst. 

 

In my case, this RAID 1 set of drives was already backup of 12 super old hard drives I've got in a box in storage - but I wanted to avoid having to recover the data from those old hard drives at all costs - consolidating that data into my RAID 1 drives took a ridiculous amount of time, and I wasn't going to go through that again.  And as the drives are so old, I wasn't expecting many of them to still be functional.  So backing up this data before delving in was still a must.

 

To manually recover the data I used GetDataBack Simple .  There may well be other, better/cheaper alternatives out there, and I'm sure there are, but I couldn't find any other recommendations and this did do the job.  The free version lets you confirm that the physical data actually is on the drives, and once you have the confirmation, you can fork out the $79 to actually recover it.  Copy the data onto any free HD space you have in your other drives, a NAS or the cloud; it'll only be temporary.

 

Step 2: Get the drives off the Marvell controller

If the RAID functionality on your Marvell controller has died like it did with me, try and move your drives onto any other SATA ports you have in your motherboard.  I had already exhausted all my Intel Controller SATA ports, but I did have a cheap and old Adaptek RAID controller lying around (Adaptek RAID 1220SA), so I installed the controller and reconnected the RAID 1 drives to that.

 

Step 3: Create a new RAID 1

This is the really risky step, hence the need to backup your data. It depends a lot on the RAID controller you have your drives hooked up to.  The Adaptek controller I was using gives you the option to create a new volume but with a "quick" initialisation option rather than the full "clear" initialisation.  In the Adaptek controller, the quick initialisation doesn't actually wipe the hard drives like a normal initialisation does, so my data was preserved.  But I guess different controllers may not have that option, or they do have a quick option yet still wipes some/all data. 

 

If you haven't been able to backup your data (because you don't have a big enough drive to back it up to), I'd skip this risky step and go to Step 4.  Step 3 allows you to get a RAID 1 back up and running again, but data is more important, so you can just go to Step 4 without Step 3 and just recover the drive as a single Non-RAID drive.

 

Step 4: Recover the partition data

Now the RAID 1 volume has been created (and not fully initialised), Windows should be able to see the RAID 1 drives as a single drive with an "unallocated" volume in Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management.  The physical data should all be there, but windows has no way of seeing it.  For this I used a freeware tool called Partition Wizard . Again, there may be better alternatives, but this worked fine for me.  It was able to identify what the partitions should be and managed to rebuild the partition tables pretty quickly. Once that was done, windows was able to see the volumes in Computer Management, and all that was left was to assign drive letter.

 

And there we are.  My RAID 1 config was back to how it used to be, as though nothing had happened.  And I also had a backup of that array just in case it all went to pot.  Happy Ending!

[+BudMan MVC]

Glad to hear that it worked out..  But you really should address your "backup" plan and schedule.  While having a orig copy of your data on some old drives you have in a box would actually constitute a back.. Its not a very good one

 

So these drives must be really really small if you have 12 of them to fit on 4TB?

 

If you want to use your raid 1 as your working set that is great, loss of drive and your still working..  Throw in another drive and your 100%. etc  That is fantastic if your willing to spend 2x the money for that functionality, and you want your data online at all time, etc.  But you still need an actual "backup"  Be it once a day, week, month, quarter, etc.  All the data that is on your working array should be copied over to offline copy.

 

This way if array takes a ######, you get infected with say ransomware or just by mistake wipe all your data, etc.  You actually have a copy of those files - be it a day, week, 6 months old, etc.. Its better than loosing years of stuff..

[Blackima]

Glad to hear that it worked out..  But you really should address your "backup" plan and schedule.  While having a orig copy of your data on some old drives you have in a box would actually constitute a back.. Its not a very good one

 

So these drives must be really really small if you have 12 of them to fit on 4TB?

 

If you want to use your raid 1 as your working set that is great, loss of drive and your still working..  Throw in another drive and your 100%. etc  That is fantastic if your willing to spend 2x the money for that functionality, and you want your data online at all time, etc.  But you still need an actual "backup"  Be it once a day, week, month, quarter, etc.  All the data that is on your working array should be copied over to offline copy.

 

This way if array takes a ######, you get infected with say ransomware or just by mistake wipe all your data, etc.  You actually have a copy of those files - be it a day, week, 6 months old, etc.. Its better than loosing years of stuff..

 

Yup yup, I know. As I mentioned in my OP, I have a chunky NAS drive to backup data on my comp.  These things aren't cheap, so I only managed to get one a few days ago. I also finally have an upload speed >0.9Mbps, so offsite backups are also possible now.

 

If you have any recommendations of backup software (from comp to NAS), that would be helpful.  I've been using Syncback for what feels like a decade, so I'm sure there are better options out there now

[+BudMan MVC]

As to backup software I use cloudberry desktop $29, it backs up to all the cloud based storage. I use amazon glacier for 1 of my DR backup of my home videos, pictures.  It costs me currently like 83 cents a month, you get charged 10 cents per GB per month. Until I get to couple hundred GB this is most economical solution.  I also have crashplan - there was a thread a while back about free year household backup $150 plan, etc. so giving it a test run.  Not sure will buy it on my own, but its been quietly backing up in the background and get a email every month, etc.

 

To backup my home video's and pictures off my nas to my backup disk and my pc I just use freefilesync.  There is always 3 different copies of my critical files, my nas, my pc and my backup disk.  And for DR (offsite) I have amazon glacier and currently crashplan going.  I also every few months when have enough new video to fill up a DVD or BR I burn couple of copies.  One copy goes to my son's house 40 some miles away and another goes on my self.  I also burn a mdisc for long term archival of home videos.  These are the discs that are suppose to last 1000 years.  At <$5 a disc for 25GB bluray I figure want to make sure don't loose my grandkids videos..

 

I don't backup up crap I can replace.. I backup stuff that can not be replaced - my home video's and pictures.  Anything else is replaceable.  I have TB of video's and music - I can rerip it or buy it again if the house burns down sort of thing, etc.  No reason to spend dollars backing up replaceable stuff.  On the other hand those 1 of of kind video's and pictures of your grandkids 1st birthday, etc.  Those can never be replaced..  So make sure good and multiple backups!

 

edit: also just because the feature is there and your not talking large amount of space my video's and pictures are also stored on multiple disks on my storage.  I use drivepool and you can pick files or folders to place on all or some number of disks you have in your pool, etc.  So my video and picture folders are on 2 of my disks in the pool.  Its not a backup but if one of the disks failed I would still have current listing of files and directory structure and possible may any files that had not been backed up yet, etc.

[Blackima]

That's fantastic, thanks a lot for the recommendations Budman. The Amazon options (glacier) seem pretty intimidating, or at least more business oriented, but the pricing seems really good.  My FreeNAS server comes with Crashplan integration, so that's also an attractive option.  Anyway, you've given a lot to think about, so thanks for the suggestions.

[sciensys]

the same issue with Marvell RAID controller

but no one software can full recover helps.

files structure was destroyed, and can see 2nd level of one folder. Other files was scanned and recovered, BUT PARTIALLY! from 1.8Tb data was recovered over 800gb from 4Tb RAID1 array with two absolutely new hard disks and with one write cycle only !!!!!!!!!

Gigabyte said - FY, Marvell did not discuss completely.
so... NEVER USE MARVELL Controllers!
I suppose, Marvell stores files structure not like all manufacturers usually.

I recovered files partially as could, and tuneup software RAID1 with Microsoft Windows.

folders you can see at snapshots - it's a second level not complete structure of one root folder only. other root folders destroyed.

the same destroyed  files structure gives: R-Studio, UFS Explorer Pro Recovery, DiskInternails Raid Recovery. Partition Wizard Technical, RAID Recovery.

 

MARVELL  - burn in hell.

 

Edited May 5, 2020 by sciensys