PC won't boot, gurus pls help

[Milano]

My system:

Intel Guardfish G965 Mainboard
2 x Seagate 160GB 8MB SATA HDD in RAID1 (on board)

Any tips? What does this mean?

 

[The_Techie]

It seems that the creation of your RAID1 array has failed. Have you tried recreating the array?

 

[Milano]

Was working fine this morning and then it hung while I was working. When it restarted it just showed RAID failed and wouldn't boot.

Should I just select option 1 - 'Create Raid Volume'? Don't want to lose any data.

 

[The_Techie]

Well, they are already RAID volumes so I don't know whether that would help (I'm not familiar with the Intel RAID controllers). Maybe resetting them to non-RAID then recreating the RAID array?

Disclaimer: Don't blame me if anything goes wrong

 

[Milano]

Disclaimer: Don't blame me if anything goes wrong

That's what I am afraid of

 

[The_Techie]

That's what I am afraid of

Hehe, that's why I'm kind of hesitant to offer any advice because I'm not really familiar with the Intel RAID controllers so chances are that something will break

 

[nivek]

since its a mirror, just unplug one drive, go into the BIOS, disable RAID and change the sata mode to 'legacy' and then try booting...

 

[Milano]

Hmm...1, 2 or 3? What's it gonna be?

Hey, I am not doing this alone, help me out

 

[kronoSX]

nothing will break as long as you dont see a message data could be lost..lol

 

[nivek]

That's what I am afraid of

If it works then just unplug both drives, re-enable raid, delete the array (if it still exists in the raid oprom), reconnect the drives, boot into windows and re-create the array using intel's matrix storage manager for windows

 

[kronoSX]

you have to crash a pc in order to fix it,its a rule of thumb

 

[Milano]

since its a mirror, just unplug one drive, go into the BIOS, disable RAID and change the sata mode to 'legacy' and then try booting...

Ok thanks will try that...

 

[Asha'man X]

I've worked with Intel Raid quite a few times, and I can tell you this: if you delete that array, the disks are reset to non raid, and all your data goes bye bye.

Raid 1 means mirroring the data, so both hard drives contain exactly the same data. Try maybe physically removing one drive's SATA cable, and try booting up. The Raid may complain, but it should start up, as that is what Raid 1 was primarily designed for I think. Try it with either of those drives. If you can get into Windows after that, back up everything.

Once you have a backup, put bith disks in, delete the arrray, and recreate it if you want/need it. From there you should be able to do a restore and have things working again.

Hope this helps, and good luck.

 

[The_Techie]

since its a mirror, just unplug one drive, go into the BIOS, disable RAID and change the sata mode to 'legacy' and then try booting...

Sounds about right

 

[kronoSX]

this is a long shot but try changing in the bios from sata to ide and press f10 and restart and then again change it back and then f10 again...

 

[Milano]

Raid 1 means mirroring the data, so both hard drives contain exactly the same data. Try maybe physically removing one drive's SATA cable, and try booting up. The Raid may complain, but it should start up, as that is what Raid 1 was primarily designed for I think.

Ok I unplugged the one drive but still nothing. Still shows failed and just one driving showing under error occurred

since its a mirror, just unplug one drive, go into the BIOS, disable RAID and change the sata mode to 'legacy' and then try booting...

Ok, so is this safe to try? I see under BIOS drive configuration it says, 'configure SATA as':

IDE
RAID
AHCI

Which should I select other than RAID? What is AHCI?

 

[nivek]

Use IDE'

AHCI you'll need to have a driver already installed in your OS for it to boot with.. and it will blue screen

and yeah, its completely safe

 

[Milano]

Thanks nivek, good stuff

Boots up perfectly with 1 drive plugged in and IDE selected. Finds IDE controllers etc after bootup.

Helps a great deal because at least I can use it until I get it checked out on Monday.

Wonder what is wrong with the whole RAID thing though

 

[The_Techie]

Backup while it's working, just in case

 

[Milano]

Fortunately the other drive also works in IDE mode so I have tried both drives on their own and both boot Gave me a real scare. So it is just RAID mode that does not work for some reason.