Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Restoring RAID 1

0 helpful
6 replies

by blackcurrant

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hi

A friend of mine has a Windows XP machine with RAID 1 (2 X 250GB SATA drives).

He needed to transfer 18GB of data to his machine. We removed his first drive and set it up in my machine. My machine normally boots from an IDE channel, but when I attached his SATA drive, the machine booted from his SATA drive instead. OK, I thought, so I transfered the data across.

Now, when he reinserted his SATA drive, he got a message saying that the hal.dll file was missing or corrupt. I assumed that his drive had reconfigured itself to start in a non-RAID system (my system), and that the boot order was now invalid. Tried to access the Recovery Console to fix the boot.ini file, but the RC refused to accept the administrator password. Downloaded the new XP setup disks from Microsoft and booted from those - still refused to accept the administrator password.

My friend then bypassed the Recovery Console and opted for XP Setup to repair the installation.

Now his machine will not boot at all.

Dell Technical Support say that his drive has probably lost data as a result of being placed in my machine (?).

He is currently trying to boot from his second RAID drive, and see if he can rebuild his first drive.

Has anyone had a similar problem? Does anyone know of a solution?

6 replies

by wcp

You did not mention whether your SATA controller can be used as non-raid (or IDE).
I have not had a similar experience, but the following seems logical to me.
Before you do any, ghost your second HD as a backup.

SATA as IDE
Disable RAID. Connect your first HD only. Lowlevel format the HD. Connect the second HD only. Boot to Windows.
If it boots to Windows, connect your first HD, enable RAID, and regenerate the first HD.
If it does not boot, do repair installation. Make sure hit F6 key providing SATA controller. Reconnect the first HD. Enable RAID and regenerate the first HD. If this does not boot to Windows, do repair installation of Windows with RAID enabled.

SATA as RAID only
Lowlevel format the first HD. You may have to do this by connecting it to another computer. Enable RAID, and regenerate the first HD.
If it boots to Windows, you are done.
If it does not boot, do repair installation. Make sure to hit F6 key and provide SATA RAID controller.

by choppit

I've never worked with SATA drives before, but it would appear that your system made changes to the OS on his drive which are incompatible with his hardware. If his system boots with the remaining drive then I'd suggest wiping the problem drive and approach the problem as if converting a single drive system to a mirrored system.

by blackcurrant

Hi

Thanks for answering.

It seems that when the repair took place, the changes were mirrored to the second drive (we think). Luckily this is a new computer and did not have very much data on it. Therefore, my friend has decided to start from scratch and do a complete reinstall. The data he wanted copied has been transferred to DVD disks which he shall copy across to his new drive.

Thanks again.

This discussion is closed to new replies.