Tordivel AS, Storgata 20, NO-0184 Oslo, Norway - Phone: +47 23158700 - VAT#: NO966813946MVA

Email : office@tordivel.no - Web: www.tordivel.no

RAID1 rebuild procedure for

Intel Matrix Storage Manager
Document number GD-2012-0022-A

Date: March 9, 2012

Written by: Torleif Ringsaker, Tordivel AS

Distribution: Public

1 Introduction
RAID1 is a drive mirroring functionality handled at the drive controller level in a computer. From
the operating system, one drive is visible. In the drive bay, two drives are present, and the drive
controller makes sure both of these drives have the same content at all times.

If an error is discovered with one of the drives, the drive controller will continue to provide drive
access, but only the healthy hard drive is used. The controller is now operating in degraded
mode.

This document describes the procedure for restoring full RAID1 functionality. It applies to
computer assemblies supplied by Tordivel AS where the Intel Matrix Storage Manager is
installed as the configuration interface to the RAID controller.

2 Revision History
● March 9, 2012 - TR: Revision A

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Tordivel AS, Storgata 20, NO-0184 Oslo, Norway - Phone: +47 23158700 - VAT#: NO966813946MVA
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3 Table Of Contents
1 Introduction
2 Revision History
3 Table Of Contents
4 Noteworthy information
5 RAID1 - graceful degradation
5.1 Symptoms
5.2 Identify the failing drive
5.3 Replace the faulty drive
5.4 Rebuild the RAID volume
6 Hard degradation
7 Changing the language

4 Noteworthy information
● To rebuild a RAID volume, a healthy drive must be installed to replace the bad one. It is
important that total capacity is equal to or exceeding the capacity of the volume.
a. One example - replacing a Western Digital 250 GB drive
■ actual capacity 233.7 GB
b. with a Seagate 250 GB drive
■ actual capacity 232.8 GB
c. is not possible, as the Seagate drive has less space.
● Although the drive bay has “hot swappable” ports,
a. In most condition “hot-swapping” works very well - but be cautious
■ We have experienced problems like Windows bluescreen when pulling or
inserting drives with the computer power on.
b. In the cases where issues are experienced we recommend that the computer is
shut down before changing the content of the drive bay.
● The language in the Matrix Storage Console application may not be of your choice.
a. See the end of the document for instructions on how to change the language.

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5 RAID1 - graceful degradation

5.1 Symptoms
RAID1 problems are usually showing as an icon on the system tray of Windows, maybe with a
tooltip with some text:

The text may be different, depending on the failure mode of the drive.

5.2 Identify the failing drive

Click on the message or the RAID icon to open the Matrix Storage Console.

.
The drive on port 0 is present in the example above. This corresponds to the top drive bay on
the computer. The drive in the middle bay should be replaced.

Note that the Matrix Storage Console has two modes - Basic (shown above) and Advanced.

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The latter gives more information about volume and drives. Basic provides all required
functionality for doing a volume rebuild.

5.3 Procedure - Replace the faulty drive

Follow these steps:
1. Shut down the computer.
2. Remove the tray with the faulty drive.
3. Replace the failing drive with a new one in the tray.
4. Install the tray with the new drive. Make sure it is pushed all the way in before latching
and locking.
5. Start the computer again.
6. If the computer now fails to boot, the healthy disk has probably been exchanged. Swap
the drive in the other bay instead and retry starting the computer.

5.4 Rebuild the RAID volume

Once the computer is started again and Windows is booted, the system tray message will
appear again.

Click on the text or tray icon to lauch the Matrix Storage Console.

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The Matrix Storage Console now shows two drives, one part of the RAID volume on Port 1, and
the new drive on Port 0.

To restore RAID 1 data protection, click on the button with the same text in the bottom right part
of the dialog.

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Almost there - click the “Rebuild RAID volume now” button to continue.

Finally, acknowledge the “Are you sure...” question by clicking Yes.

RAID volume should now be rebuilding.

The computer may be used while this is going on. Computer performance may be slightly
reduced while the rebuild is going on.

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6 Hard degradation
The computer may fail to boot in some situations. In this case, the problem may be just one of
the disks. In this case, it should be possible to check for errors by accessing the RAID controller
BIOS. This will be opened by pressing “Ctrl-I” when prompted during computer startup.

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The failed drive should be identified using the RAID controller BIOS configuration

utility.

The above screendump shows one RAID volume (Volume0:1, ID 0) which is degraded, and one
physical disk which is member of this volume (Member Disk(0)). The physical disk is on port 1.
In normal installations, the upper disk bay is port 0, and the center disk bay is port 1.

The failing disk should be identified. Shut down the computer with the power switch. Pull the
failing disk from the bay, and switch on power again. The computer should now boot properly.

If booting still fails, try pulling the other disk.

Notice that if booting fails from any of the two disks, the content of the disk(s) is non-bootable.
Other repair procedures will then apply.

Once the computer will boot from one disk, it is possible to restore RAID protection if the booting
disk is part of a RAID volume.

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Tordivel AS, Storgata 20, NO-0184 Oslo, Norway - Phone: +47 23158700 - VAT#: NO966813946MVA
Email : office@tordivel.no - Web: www.tordivel.no

7 Changing the language

If the language of the Matrix Storage Console application is not of your choice, it may be
changed from this dialog found under “Regional and Language options” in the Windows Control
Panel. Select your preferred language in the “Language for non-Unicode programs” section.
The change is effective after a reboot of Windows.

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