New Disk Signature - Loose data?

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Guest

I have a SCSI disk drive that was part of a mirror RAID1 set on our Windows
2000 Server. Well I rebooted the other day, and the Raid system marks it as
‘Failed.’ The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
‘failed. I put the drive in an old Dell Power Edge 2300. And the RAID
controller picks it up fine. So I activate it, and boot into NT 4.0 server.

It asks if I want to write a Disk Signature to the drive. Should I? I’m
worried if I do this, it will wipe out the MBR and/or Data from the Windows
2000 server setup. Is there a risk doing this? I just want to see if the
data is still there from the Win2000 server.
 
Courtney R said:
I have a SCSI disk drive that was part of a mirror RAID1 set on our Windows
2000 Server. Well I rebooted the other day, and the Raid system marks it as
'Failed.' The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
'failed. I put the drive in an old Dell Power Edge 2300. And the RAID
controller picks it up fine. So I activate it, and boot into NT 4.0 server.

It asks if I want to write a Disk Signature to the drive. Should I? I'm
worried if I do this, it will wipe out the MBR and/or Data from the Windows
2000 server setup. Is there a risk doing this? I just want to see if the
data is still there from the Win2000 server.
Click to expand...

If your OS wants to write a signature on the disk then it does
not recognise it as having a valid file system. Don't let it do it
but attempt to retrieve its data without modifying the disk in any
way.

You write "The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
failed." This is not the way it works. Disks have a certain failure
probability and they can fail at any time, even though that probability
increases over time. Furthermore I don't think this is a mechanical
failure but rather a logical failure: The platter surfaces are intact
but the file system may be corrupted.
 
And by all means don't just reinstall it and kick it back online. Run the
manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive. Then at the very least rebuild the
array.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| If your OS wants to write a signature on the disk then it does
| not recognise it as having a valid file system. Don't let it do it
| but attempt to retrieve its data without modifying the disk in any
| way.
|
| You write "The drive is only 8 months old, so I don't buy that its really
| failed." This is not the way it works. Disks have a certain failure
| probability and they can fail at any time, even though that probability
| increases over time. Furthermore I don't think this is a mechanical
| failure but rather a logical failure: The platter surfaces are intact
| but the file system may be corrupted.
|
|
 
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