Promise TX4000- two striped drives a goner or....

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fotoobscura

Hi.

I have a Promise TX4000 and had a drive that went dark (intentionally,
unplugged) for a few months. One day I went into the bios and noticed
I only had one drive and remember I unplugged it. I had also since
removed the drive.

Here's the dumb part:

Forgetting this wasn't a mirrored array for some reason I "initialized"
or maybe better put "made online" but did NOT format one of the two
drives in the stripe. I did *not* do anything, at least knowingly that
would hurt anything. No to all "are you sure you want to do this?"
sort of thing.

I then realised the err in my ways and plugged the second drive in. I
went back into the Promise BIOS and noticed both drives recognized as
striped and the right size. I booted into Windows and went to computer
manager to "mount" it. It was there but was acting as if both drives
were empty and unformatted.

This means, obviously, I did something stupid.

The question is- the data on both drives is technically still there but
of course written across separate disks in 64byte blocks. Is there a
way to "save" this stripe or rebuild the MBR for the stripe so I can
get this data back?

It seems to me that even a program like Ontrack to recover data (raw,
formatted, etc) may not work if it doesn't recognize the stripe.
Without recognizing the stripe I presume Ontrack will not know that
64bytes is on one drive, 64 on the other (or so I believe the striping
works).

I have a feeling that i'm not SOL providing I can re-create the stripe.
It seems to me that because the striping is a reoccurring process that
you can infer the stripe that needs to "span" the files on the drive.

So, before I wipe the two drives and make a new stripe and let things
fall as they may, can anyone suggest a way to recover this lost stripe?

Thanks for all info.

p.s. and no I don't have a backup but its not end-of-the-world if I
lose the data. (hence the stripe in the first place) :)
 
Hi.

I have a Promise TX4000 and had a drive that went dark (intentionally,
unplugged) for a few months. One day I went into the bios and noticed
I only had one drive and remember I unplugged it. I had also since
removed the drive.

Here's the dumb part:

Forgetting this wasn't a mirrored array for some reason I "initialized"
or maybe better put "made online" but did NOT format one of the two
drives in the stripe. I did *not* do anything, at least knowingly that
would hurt anything. No to all "are you sure you want to do this?"
sort of thing.

I then realised the err in my ways and plugged the second drive in. I
went back into the Promise BIOS and noticed both drives recognized as
striped and the right size. I booted into Windows and went to computer
manager to "mount" it. It was there but was acting as if both drives
were empty and unformatted.

This means, obviously, I did something stupid.

The question is- the data on both drives is technically still there but
of course written across separate disks in 64byte blocks. Is there a
way to "save" this stripe or rebuild the MBR for the stripe so I can
get this data back?

It seems to me that even a program like Ontrack to recover data (raw,
formatted, etc) may not work if it doesn't recognize the stripe.
Without recognizing the stripe I presume Ontrack will not know that
64bytes is on one drive, 64 on the other (or so I believe the striping
works).

I have a feeling that i'm not SOL providing I can re-create the stripe.
It seems to me that because the striping is a reoccurring process that
you can infer the stripe that needs to "span" the files on the drive.

So, before I wipe the two drives and make a new stripe and let things
fall as they may, can anyone suggest a way to recover this lost stripe?

Thanks for all info.

p.s. and no I don't have a backup but its not end-of-the-world if I
lose the data. (hence the stripe in the first place) :)
Click to expand...

I do not understand in details what happened, but recovery software
exist that will simulate a stripe set, and copy the data.

You can get Findpart at

http://www.partitionsupport.com/utilities.htm

do:

findpart all fp.txt

and mail me the file fp.txt.


If as example two disks in a stripe set are visible as disk 2 and 3,
and the stripe size is 2^6 KB (64 KB), the Findpart command to search
the set would be:

findpart R236 fp-a.txt
 
Thanks Svend! I didn't realise you wrote the program :)

I have located the "disk"..here is output..when its done looking for
partitions (so far nothing) i'll write back with what you wanted me to
email you...I think I may be without luck but i'm hoping :)

This is my "one" disk (2 drives)

Disk: 3 Cylinders: 30034 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 235593

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1 06 63482496147235593 0 1 1 30033*254 63 00 OK

This is output of findpart 3

C:\_temp>findpart 3

Findpart, version 4.71 - for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Copyright Svend Olaf Mikkelsen, 1999-2006.

OS: Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2

Disk: 3 Cylinders: 30034 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 235593

None found.



Still waiting for it to end...its been a while...i'm about to break the
program in about 20 minutes if it doesn't exit on it own.

Thanks!
 
Thanks Svend! I didn't realise you wrote the program :)

I have located the "disk"..here is output..when its done looking for
partitions (so far nothing) i'll write back with what you wanted me to
email you...I think I may be without luck but i'm hoping :)

This is my "one" disk (2 drives)

Disk: 3 Cylinders: 30034 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 235593

--PCyl N ID -----Rel -----Num ---MB --Start CHS- ---End CHS-- BS CHS
0 1 06 63482496147235593 0 1 1 30033*254 63 00 OK

This is output of findpart 3

C:\_temp>findpart 3

Findpart, version 4.71 - for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP.
Copyright Svend Olaf Mikkelsen, 1999-2006.

OS: Windows 5.1.2600 Service Pack 2

Disk: 3 Cylinders: 30034 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 235593

None found.



Still waiting for it to end...its been a while...i'm about to break the
program in about 20 minutes if it doesn't exit on it own.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

If the search takes too long to finish, you in stead can do:

findpart tables fp-a.txt

and mail me the file fp-a.txt as attached file.
 
Svend,

Ok potentially bad news.

I removed the drives from the array and plugged them in separately with
a ide/usb connector and one drive isn't spinning up. I hope its a
fluke but I doubt it. I think the array correctly is interpreting the
second drive but it isn't testing that it spins up. I suspect I may be
SOL. Unless of course for some very odd reason that one drive won't
spin up with the IDE/USB connector i'm using (odd, same drives).

These are indeed IBM 120gb drives which aren't exactly workhorses....

I may have to call quits on this one :(
 
Svend,

Ok potentially bad news.

I removed the drives from the array and plugged them in separately with
a ide/usb connector and one drive isn't spinning up. I hope its a
fluke but I doubt it. I think the array correctly is interpreting the
second drive but it isn't testing that it spins up. I suspect I may be
SOL. Unless of course for some very odd reason that one drive won't
spin up with the IDE/USB connector i'm using (odd, same drives).

These are indeed IBM 120gb drives which aren't exactly workhorses....

I may have to call quits on this one :(
Click to expand...

In mail I had:
Disk: 3 Cylinders: 30034 Heads: 255 Sectors: 63 MB: 235593

Start cylinder: 30030 End cylinder: 30033 Index records not shown.

--------- CHS ----- LBA T -Record Cluster Name
30033 252 61 482496081 Boot or backup
Sectors per cluster: 8
MFT cluster: 786432
MFT mirror cluster: 30156009
Partition sectors: 482496147
Click to expand...

Sector 482496081 for the backup boot sector is 64 KB lower than
expected, meaning that the disks in the array were in the wrong order.

Assuming a 64 KB stripe size (and sector size 512 bytes)

482496081 mod 256 = 81

meaning that sector 482496081 is on the same disk as the MBR we have
seen, so there is no proof that the second disk was actually read by
Findpart.

I would expect the TX4000 BIOS and drivers to read some stripe set
data at the end of the disks, so I then do not understand how the
235593 MB disk was reported.

Theoretically, IBM disks has a "no spinup" feature that can be set and
removed.
 
So after all this does this mean i'm out of luck or its still worth
trying?

I'll do whatever it takes- but the fact the the drive doesn't spinup at
all (and I haven't done anything to cause this) I suspect its a goner?
 
So after all this does this mean i'm out of luck or its still worth
trying?

I'll do whatever it takes- but the fact the the drive doesn't spinup at
all (and I haven't done anything to cause this) I suspect its a goner?
Click to expand...

I still do not understand how the stripe set was reported, if one of
the disk did not spinup. If a disk does not spinup, I cannot help.


Aside from that:

It may be a very small chance, but as mentioned some IBM disk models
can be set to "no spinup". The purpose is to avoid too much power use
at system power on.

If a parallel ATA disk is set to no spinup, the Findpart for DOS
commands to remove the setting would be (example for primary slave):

set findpart=edit
findpart feature ps spinup


or to spinup the disk at once:

set findpart=edit
findpart feature ps spinupnow


It is required that a BIOS is present, that does not hang if a disk
does not spinup.
 
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