RAID Failure & Unable to Import configuration

[Mad Professor]

Good day all.
I am hoping that someone here has much more experience with hardware raid setups than I do.

 

I was running raid 5 with 8 SATA HDD's on a Fujitsu D3116C based on the LSI (ROC SAS2208) Controller.

 

Anyway to the point I've just lost my raid array and I am having a very hard time trying to recover it to any kind of suitable state without losing data.

 

The system was running Windows Server 2019 booting from a SATA SSD.

This all started as I wanted to try out Windows Server 2022, so I downloaded the ISO and made a USB install drive.

I replaced the working windows server 2019 SSD with a space SSD for a clean install of windows server 2022. But when booting the installer it would BSOD with "storport.sys" error.

After some google searching I found posts where other people issue and seemed to be related to raid cards and or configurations.

So I removed the raid controller, and the windows installer worked fine, finished installing windows server 2022 without any issues.

Shutdown the system, and refitted the raid controller, once again to be meet with the BSOD and "storport.sys" error.

Back to google and found people saying that if the drive(s) were disconnect from the controller the system would boot without and issue.

 

I thought I will just disconnect the drives from the raid controller, leaving the raid controller fitted, windows would then see the raid controller and install the driver(s), and I would then shutdown and reconnect the drives.

 

Well windows did indeed see the raid controller and install the driver(s), but after shutting down the system and reconnecting the drivers, the raid controller is no longer seeing the raid array.

 

Using the windows MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) v17.05.02.01, I can see that all of the drives are showing as Foreign / Unconfigured.

Selecting "Scan Foreign Configuration" sees the previous setup, but fails to Import.

 

I did find this Q&A on Broadcom's Knowledge Base: https://www.broadcom.com/support/knowledgebase/1211161498332/unable-to-import-foreign-configuration---deleted-my-megaraid-arr

And this guide for MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM): ftp://tsupport:tsupport@ftp0.broadcom.com/private/MegaRAID/downloads/recreate_in_MSM.doc

 

I know that RAID is not a Backup, and I should of moved/copied Important data to another drive and or to the cloud, being that I was trying something new out, but I really didn't think that this would of broken the raid array.

 

[leadeater]

3 minutes ago, Mad Professor said:

Well windows did indeed see the raid controller and install the driver(s), but after shutting down the system and reconnecting the drivers, the raid controller is no longer seeing the raid array.

Could you go in to the RAID WebBIOS or Windows MegaRAID and post a few screen shots of the detected physical drives etc.

[leadeater]

20 minutes ago, Mad Professor said:

Well windows did indeed see the raid controller and install the driver(s), but after shutting down the system and reconnecting the drivers, the raid controller is no longer seeing the raid array.

 

Using the windows MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM) v17.05.02.01, I can see that all of the drives are showing as Foreign / Unconfigured.

Selecting "Scan Foreign Configuration" sees the previous setup, but fails to Import.

Did you just slightly pop out the disks from the drive bays or if not in a backplane drive bay only disconnect the power? Basically did you connect the disks back to the same data ports they were originally connected to?

[Mad Professor]

I disconnected the two SFF-8087 connectors from the raid controller, and I can confirm that I reconnected them back to the same ports.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Mad Professor said:

I disconnected the two SFF-8087 connectors from the raid controller, and I can confirm that I reconnected them back to the same ports.

Not sure if it allows this as I cannot remember but try popping all but one disk out and trying to import the array, I vaguely remember being able to do this then inserting the now "missing disks" and the array coming back online.

[Mad Professor]

With only one drive I now get "NO Foreign Configuration is found!"
And the drive status has change from "Foreign / Unconfigured" to "Unconfigured / Good".

 

With all drives reconnected the status has also changed from "Foreign / Unconfigured" to "Unconfigured / Good".

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Mad Professor said:

With only one drive I now get "NO Foreign Configuration is found!"
And the drive status has change from "Foreign / Unconfigured" to "Unconfigured / Good".

Try another drive to see if that behavior is consistent.

 

What's happened shouldn't have been a problem like you said/thought, but it's possible you experience a drive failure while swapping out parts etc. One of the disks might not be able to be read correctly by the RAID card anymore causing the import to fail.

 

The linked method you provided about destroying the array should work but boy that give me super bad vibes. I have recovered failed RAID arrays before using Recover My Files but you have to connect the disks to regular SATA/SAS HBA ports i.e. directly to motherboard and also know the exact RAID setting which means the stripe size as well.

[Mad Professor]

I've tried repeating what you said on a few single drives, each time I select Scan Foreign Configuration, I now just get NO Foreign Configuration is found!

[leadeater]

2 minutes ago, Mad Professor said:

I've tried repeating what you said on a few single drives, each time I select Scan Foreign Configuration, I now just get NO Foreign Configuration is found!

Darn, sounds like it needs all the drives to be aware of the config then. Have you tried the import in the WebBIOS as well as MegaRAID or just one of them?

[Mad Professor]

I've only been using the windows MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM), I'm not that familiar with WebBIOS.

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, Mad Professor said:

I've only been using the windows MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM), I'm not that familiar with WebBIOS.

Give the WebBIOS a try or swap back to Windows Server 2019 and try MSM on that, might be a Windows compatibility issue. WebBIOS is the better place to try though.

[Mad Professor]

I think I am going to give the WebBIOS a miss for now as I am not that familiar with it, and I don't want to end up messing things up more than they are already.
At this point I had already gone back to original boot SSD with Windows Server 2019. and I am still getting the same.

 

I think at this point further research is required before trying anything else.

But if the mean time if anyone had any more thoughts and or suggestions, please do comment.

[Mad Professor]

As of yet I have been unable to gain access to the raid array.

It's been a very long day so I think I am going to get some sleep, and in the morning look at directly connecting the HDD's to the motherboard SATA ports and trying some recovery software, Such as;

• Recover My Files.
• ReclaiMe Free Raid Recovery.
• Hetman RAID Recovery.
• UFS Explorer.

Once again I have never used the above programs, so further research is required.

[Mad Professor]

I have been looking at the above list of recovery software, and I can't find much in the way of tutorials/guides and what I have found is outdated and or does not seem to work for me.

 

However I tried ReclaiMe Free Raid Recovery, and it has a very simple interface, and after almost two days it spat out the following;

Quote

This is a plain-text general description of the reconstructed array layout.

 

The array type is RAID5.
The array consists of 6 disks.

 

The disks are ordered as follows:
#00: Disk 0 - Serial number A1DDFKQE, \\.\PhysicalDrive0
#01: Disk 1 - Serial number A08ZFKQE, \\.\PhysicalDrive1
#02: Disk 5 - Serial number A1YFFKQE, \\.\PhysicalDrive5
#03: Disk 2 - Serial number A1GMFKQE, \\.\PhysicalDrive2
#04: Disk 4 - Serial number A2TYFKQE, \\.\PhysicalDrive4
#05: Disk 3 - Serial number A2V1FKQE, \\.\PhysicalDrive3

 

Block size is 64.0 KB , same as 128 sectors.
The data starts at sector (LBA) 0 (this is often called "offset" or "start offset").

 

Block map is as follows: 

    1    2    3    4    5    P
    7    8    9  10    P    6
  13  14  15    P  11  12
  19  20    P  16  17  18
  25    P  21  22  23  24
    P  26  27  28  29  30

Generated by ReclaiMe Free RAID Recovery build 3457, www.FreeRaidRecovery.com

I must admit I was a little bit confused as the raid controller definitely had 8 HDD's connected and they were all being detected/shown in MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM), ReclaiMe Free Raid Recovery is clearly saying that the array only had 6 HDD's, so two of the drives must not of been configured.

Even with this information I could not get the raid controller to rebuild the array, So I am now going to carry on to try and recover the data via software.

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

7 hours ago, Mad Professor said:

I have been looking at the above list of recovery software, and I can't find much in the way of tutorials/guides and what I have found is outdated and or does not seem to work for me.

 

However I tried ReclaiMe Free Raid Recovery, and it has a very simple interface, and after almost two days it spat out the following;

I must admit I was a little bit confused as the raid controller definitely had 8 HDD's connected and they were all being detected/shown in MegaRAID Storage Manager (MSM), ReclaiMe Free Raid Recovery is clearly saying that the array only had 6 HDD's, so two of the drives must not of been configured.

Even with this information I could not get the raid controller to rebuild the array, So I am now going to carry on to try and recover the data via software.

 

Id make a image of all the drives first if you haven't already.

 

Id send it off to data recovery if the data is important. There much better at getting data back than any software you can diy here.