From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 15 13:03:15 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A45A51065688 for ; Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:03:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jontheil@gmail.com) Received: from wf-out-1314.google.com (wf-out-1314.google.com [209.85.200.173]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 77C6F8FC31 for ; Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:03:15 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jontheil@gmail.com) Received: by wf-out-1314.google.com with SMTP id 24so2561644wfg.7 for ; Wed, 15 Oct 2008 06:03:15 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from:to :subject:mime-version:content-type; bh=KEqI8ZvvLS0GIBHUDSdNaibzVxaRRBzI3VStz6AD6wI=; b=HZyrW2U4SghULwL6zM8HkhH4F8euyb0ceYhd1F2uXmOCmVtmcGQj7QHfuTt2J9R2Sg AdNsBAd8q+NaKIZfzB5iJamwc407xDBAqajGLKC6p//0xY3eFLcRkMCvtDHJFzGsv9Hl 1OUtKz3uuQkEIhPWm3OymrlUFsYVspFRZ0i3I= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:to:subject:mime-version:content-type; b=F9sX1kt4cgoGeCOFft7e+vepfk/2pPDAWVGpczgRpOPOzx8Tzm5h1LEPzWoNwswjHi OW18mZJtA8/UVaZrpsy7PDfi0Tx8AtwSFGW2o/NmvMuwoJ+Kob/K2btktlp4MNN/C2ct YvH5QsM1/w8m8zwc14ZzSRH8sJi5sn+GmOLkg= Received: by 10.142.253.21 with SMTP id a21mr450578wfi.254.1224073945378; Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:32:25 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.142.166.7 with HTTP; Wed, 15 Oct 2008 05:32:25 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <8f82c35c0810150532o52ae50b5kef7c685fd23a0af4@mail.gmail.com> Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 14:32:25 +0200 From: "Jon Theil Nielsen" To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=WINDOWS-1252 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: Subject: RAID 5 - serious problem X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:03:15 -0000 Dear list, Something happened that I don't think should be possible. I "lost" all thre= e disks in my RAID 5 array simultaneously after approx. two years without any problem. And I fear I will never see my data again. But I really hope some of you clever persons can give me some hints. My system is: FreeBSD 7.0-Release Intel D975XBX2 motherboard (Intel Matrix Storage Technology) 3 WD Raptor 74 GB in a RAID 5 array 1 WD Raptor 150 GB as a standalone disk / and /var mounted on the standalone,, /usr on the RAID 5 I believe what happened was that one of the disks didn't respond for such a long time, that is was marked "bad". And afterwards the same thing happened for the other disks. When I try to boot the system, all three disks are marked "Offline". The BIOS utility for the host controller has no option to force the disks back online. I have another machine with a S5000XVN board and Intel Embedded Server RAID Technology II. The BIOS configuration utility on this board has the option to force offline drives back online. I am very desperate not to lose my data, so I don't know if I dare moving the drives to the other machine and try to make them online again. Do you think I should try? In general, are there any procedures I can try to recover my RAID array? Or is the offline status definitive =96 and all data definitely lost? I guess some specialized companies have the expertise to recover lost data from a broken RAID array, but I don't know. And I don't know the price of such a service. I would really, really appreciate any kind of help. I have backups of most user data, but not of the system configuration (and maybe even not the databases). This is of course pretty stupid. In the future, I will not rely on RAID 5 as a foolproof solution=85 Regards, Jon --=20 *Jon Theil Nielsen*