[FAWLEY]

I am running Vista Business. It is installed on a Raid 5 with 4 Hdd's. They are each 250g partitioned into 2 drives. One being C: (100g) for vista and programs, the other holding the rest of my information. Heres the problem-

When I boot up the computer it goes straight into Check disk. I am not able to press any key to cancel. It starts recovering the orphaned files that I need very much!! (Wedding pictures) So it says recovering wedding_88.jpg. It got to this WE8306~1.jpg and then it locked up. So I rebooted and it went into check disk again but this time locked up right at the beginning of the check disk with the file name WE8306~1.jpg.

Anyone have any ideas on what to try?

[Elvandil]

Sounds like a faulty drive. If you want to save the data, you better stop booting before chkdsk does any more damage and try to recover files from those drives from another machine, or a parallel installation on that one, like a bootable CD.

[FAWLEY]

How would I get the info off on other computers when it is a raid?

[Elvandil]

Good question. That is a problem with RAID arrays when one of the drives fails. It depends a bit on your RAID configuration, and I have little experience with this, but the only app I am aware of that might help is Runtime's RAID Reconstructor.

In any case, though chkdsk is a great tool and can do amazing things at times, if the partition table is invalid and chkdsk uses that information to "fix" the drive, it can scramble files beyond recognition.

[rhynes]

Is this an onboard raid or an add in card? Either way, when the system boots, you should be given a prompt to enter the raid config utility (usually ctrl-g or ctrl-a or something). Check the status of the raid and post back.

Losing one harddrive shouldn't cause this problem.

Can you stop the chkdsk? given a prompt to press any key to bypass?

[FAWLEY]

The raid is blinking red and says there is an error. It didn't use to do this, started recently. It is not a card just onboard. I can not stop the chkdsk, and there use to be a prompt but after it locked up so many times it stopped prompting me and just starting running the check disk.

[rhynes]

does it tell you what the error is? Any numbers?

What motherboard are you using?

[FAWLEY]

No numbers, but when I go into the raid utility it shows this

boot ID Status Vendor Array model name
n/a 1 Error Nvidia RAID5 698.65G
Yes 2 Degraded Nvidia RAID5 698.65G

[FAWLEY]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16813151056

Thats my mobo

[rhynes]

this is not looking good, just doing some searching and alot of the feedback for the nvidia raid is that it should be called the "nVidia RAID Mangler".

Best I can suggest is surfing through the wave of postings to see if there's anything that can fit the bill for you...

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=...e+Search&meta=

[FAWLEY]

well this sucks.

[FAWLEY]

What about attempting to rebuild the array?

[rhynes]

I would personally get on the phone with the MB manufacturer and see if there's a fix for it first, let them try to guide you. Rebuilding the array may cause more damage at this point.

There's an error and it's degraded, and there's a reason for it.