[Tyler5690]

My boot drive is a RAID 0, and I run a full system image through Windows Backup weekly. This week, one of the drives in my array gave me a read error, but the system still booted. When Windows loaded, it notified me of the drive error and attempted to make a full backup, which failed. My question is this: Now that I have a new drive to replace the failing one, will Windows Backup be able to restore my last successful backup, or will the failed backup attempt keep me from being able to restore my system?

Thanks for your help.

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With respect, it can't be currently in RAID 0 if it continued to boot with a defective drive, because a RAID 0 array simply means that if one drive falls over the entire array comes crashing down and the system shouldn't boot at all because there is no fallback with this. How many drives do you have at the moment in your RAID, how big are they and are you sure it's not RAID 1 you're using?

[Neil Jones]

With respect, it can't be currently in RAID 0 if it continued to boot with a defective drive, because a RAID 0 array simply means that if one drive falls over the entire array comes crashing down and the system shouldn't boot at all because there is no fallback with this. How many drives do you have at the moment in your RAID, how big are they and are you sure it's not RAID 1 you're using?

[Tyler5690]

I am sure it is RAID 0 - the drive is not completely dead, but it the Intel RAID utility reports read errors from it and recommends a full backup and replacement of the disk. I have a new drive ready to replace it, but I don't want to kill my still-bootable array yet if my backup won't work. There are two 750 GB drives in the array, for a total size of 1.5 TB.

Edited by Tyler5690, 29 April 2011 - 02:45 PM.

[Neil Jones]

Ah, that makes sense.

Bear in mind that you can't just replace a drive in a RAID 0 configuration without breaking the array. You will have to rebuild the array and then stick Windows back on it. In a RAID 1 configuration this isn't a problem because all you'd do is replace the faulty disk. In RAID 0 you should ideally do a like-for-like replacement size wise, otherwise the new RAID 0 array will only become the size of the smallest drive.

The issue with a Windows Backup solution on a RAID 0 setup is that when the array does fall over, Windows will go with it. So you'd have to set up a new array, put Windows back on it and then use your backup. So while it works now there's no guarantee anything else is going to read it if you are to have issues getting Windows back on at a later date.

No, a better solution would be a backup solution outside of Windows, such as Norton Ghost for example. These do not require any other software to boot from in order to restore a backup.

[Macboatmaster]

http://download.inte...sers_manual.pdf

You may find this and the other mentioned links in the document useful.