[Solved] Help, RAID controller corrupted my array. GA-880GMA-UD2H Rev: 2.0

[j5]

System:
GA-880GMA-UD2H Rev: 2.0
AMD Phenom II x2 555 BE
G.Skill Ripjaws F3-12800CL9D-4GBRL kit loaded into the "blue" slots.
2x  WD7501AALS in RAID 1
1x WD7501AALS standalone
BIOS set to optimum defaults.
Windows 7 Ultimate x64

Here's the situation:
The system was up and running.
The standalone drive dropped off the system (it had done this before and a reboot brought it back)
I went to reboot, Windows installed updates.
Get to the Drive detection screen and it tries and tries and never completes.
Power off, try again, same thing.
Crack the case and find one drive running pretty hot (the standalone)
unplug the bad one and restart, system detects my array and shows "healthy"
Then I get to the load OS and it reports "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER"
Load the Install CD and it can't find a windows installation
Switch the BIOS to AHCI and same thing, no matter which drive I select from the mirror pair.
 ( I had the drives carved up in multiple partitions, so assume that the partition table is shot)

What are my best options at this point to get those drives back?

[Dark Mantis]

Hi

What ports are your RAIDed hard drives attached to ?

What about the standalone drive ?

And the optical drive ?

What mode have you got the controllers in ?

[absic]

Hi there,

the "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" message usually comes up because of a change to the HDD BOOT Priority configuration, especially if the OS has been installed and everything was working fine. Removing an HDD is often enough to "confuse" the BIOS. Trying resetting your BOOT Priority or pressing F12 during POST to change your first BOOT device.

[j5]

Hi

What ports are your RAIDed hard drives attached to ?

What about the standalone drive ?

And the optical drive ?

What mode have you got the controllers in ?

SATA3_0 and SATA3_1 have the RAID1 drives
SATA3_2 is (was) the standalone
SATA3_3 is the optical
SATA3_4 is the ESATA connector (nothing attached, otherwise)
The SATA mode is RAID for all devices (CD-ROM shows up under the RAID controller options)

the "DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER" message usually comes up because of a change to the HDD BOOT Priority configuration, especially if the OS has been installed and everything was working fine. Removing an HDD is often enough to "confuse" the BIOS. Trying resetting your BOOT Priority or pressing F12 during POST to change your first BOOT device.

This makes sense.
I got a little further, remembering that Win7 has no RAID drivers, I loaded the latest and checked the volume list (Diskpart list volume) It shows the USB volumes (E: - H:) before my system volume at I, and the other 2 at J and K.

I only have 2 options on boot priority: The RAID1 volume (at first place) and "External devices"
The  "CTRL-F" RAID controller config doesn't offer many options either.  

Thanks for the prompt replies!

[Dark Mantis]

It would be a good idea to move the optical drive to a seperate controllers port and set that controller as IDE mode. As a matter of interest even though I doubt it has anything to do with your problem, what speed are you running your memory at ?

[j5]

It would be a good idea to move the optical drive to a seperate controllers port and set that controller as IDE mode. As a matter of interest even though I doubt it has anything to do with your problem, what speed are you running your memory at ?

I only have the 1 non RAID port free. Is it OK to move the ESATA to one of the RAID ports?

Per AMD recommendations, I'm running the RAM at 1333 with tighter timings.

[j5]

Update:
I have a replacement drive and went ahead and replaced the CPU as well since I was having issues with memory channel 0

The problem persists. I can't get Windows to boot.

Any suggestions?

eta:
I did some searching and came across a post on social.microsoft along the lines of "when you have both a raid set and a single drive, Windows 7 installs the boot files to the single drive"
Which makes perfect sense in that my boot drive is the one that went TU, taking the boot files with it...now to hunt a safe procedure to correct this fiasco...

[absic]

Hi again,

don't you just love Windows?? A bit late now but something worth remembering in the future, only use the minimum amount of HDD's when installing the OS as Windows does like to spread itself out.

The only thing that I can think of trying would be to try running a Windows repair and see if that will replace the missing BOOT files, especially as in all other respects you believe the RAID Array to still be OK. I would try this with just the RAID Disks attached first and, if that doesn't work, then add in the replacement HDD and try again.

[j5]

OK, I got it resolved.

Most of the information is here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/172639-cant-boot-after-removing-one-disk.html

For my case, all it took was to set the partition as active, after which Windows repair detected the installation and was able to correct the issue.

I did however have to move the DV-ROM to port 4 and set it to IDE per DM's suggestion, otherwise it would never boot off of the DVD.

[Dark Mantis]

I am glad to see that everything is working again now then. The trick with the optical drive quite often works even though there is no real reason why you should need to do it. The main thing is it is working.

[j5]

Can someone mark this [SOLVED] for me, or is that not something we do here?

[absic]

Hi there,

is that better?

Sadly, we don't have a solved button on the forum so it comes down to human intervention to mark them as such.

[j5]

Cheers.