RAID card screwing up HDD

[gugucom]

I use the two external ports of my Highpoint RR2642 together with a Sharkoon Quickport adapter. It works perfect for read write operations with HDDs which were partitioned in the Mac Pro.

Now I partitioned a 250 GB HDD in the Sharkoon (with GUID table) with two partitions and tried to clone the OS X boot drive on it with disk utility.

I then transfered the disk into the Mac Pro. The HDD is not recognized any more. It is shown just as Media and unpartitioned. When I put the HDD back into the Sharkoon I can read the disk again.

Has anybody an idea what happened there?

 

[gugucom]

More info on this. The Hpt controller obviously messes up the partitioning of drives you attach to it. A Vista64 bootable HDD got modified so that it would not be recognized by EFI or OS X.

I connected it up again with the RR2642 and booted it from there with some difficulties because I have to remove all other bootable media before the Mac Pro finds the device. I then called up Vista disk utility and it installed some drivers again. Then I shut down the Mac from Vista and transferred the HDD to a proper HDD sled. It got recognized again.

One 250 GB HDD is probably lost. It was partitioned while on the RR26412. Neither a Windows BIOS machine nor the Mac Pro can partition the drive any more.

I think the controller has set the HDD to be a SCSI drive and the EFI or BIOS controller cannot read those.

I'm totally fed up with Highpoint.

 

[nanofrog]

More info on this. The Hpt controller obviously messes up the partitioning of drives you attach to it. A Vista64 bootable HDD got modified so that it would not be recognized by EFI or OS X.

I connected it up again with the RR2642 and booted it from there with some difficulties because I have to remove all other bootable media before the Mac Pro finds the device. I then called up Vista disk utility and it installed some drivers again. Then I shut down the Mac from Vista and transferred the HDD to a proper HDD sled. It got recognized again.

One 250 GB HDD is probably lost. It was partitioned while on the RR26412. Neither a Windows BIOS machine nor the Mac Pro can partition the drive any more.

I think the controller has set the HDD to be a SCSI drive and the EFI or BIOS controller cannot read those.

I'm totally fed up with Highpoint.

It sounds like it blew the LBA0 (Protected MBR0). You could try a Low Level Format for the drive (be sure it supports the manufacturer and capacity).

This is what I was trying to get at in the previous thread. Something's going on, and it's likely a combination of the LBA0 is getting damaged by Highpoint's firmware, and when it was successfull (partitioned on the logic board), the offsets were different I think, and the pointers where dead ends (stalled boot).

As per Highpoint, I don't like their products in general, and have had problems myself in the past. It was bad enough that I've never bought anything from them in over 10 years. And it was over a FakeRAID controllers as well. I don't trust FakeRAID at all anymore, and am willing to spend the money on a proper hardware RAID card, even for situations other options supposedly exist. It's saved me headaches/massive aggravation as a result, and my sanity is worth it. Hence the recommendation to go ahead and get the ARC-1210 for the SSD's, assuming Areca gives a PASS on the SSD drives you've got on hand.

As it happens, members here are having success with the RR43xx SAS RAID cards (proper hardware RAID controller btw), which coincedentally, are designed and manufactured by Areca, which I've had really good success with through the years. To the point I swear by them at this point. If I get burned, that could change though.

Sorry it's been such a nightmare.

 

[gugucom]

It sounds like it blew the LBA0 (Protected MBR0). You could try a Low Level Format for the drive (be sure it supports the manufacturer and capacity).

I have tried every option of formatting that drive. When I hook it up to XP or OS X it is recognized at 0 Bytes capacity. OS X needs to initialize it and then shows it as Media. The drive is neither deletable nor partitionable.

The only way to access the drive at all is via the RR2642 controller. I have tried to unformat it with Vista disk utility to no purpose.

What do you mean by low level format? Can I blank the total drive somehow by a procedure? How is it done?

 

[nanofrog]

I have tried every option of formatting that drive. When I hook it up to XP or OS X it is recognized at 0 Bytes capacity. OS X needs to initialize it and then shows it as Media. The drive is neither deletable nor partitionable.

The only way to access the drive at all is via the RR2642 controller. I have tried to unformat it with Vista disk utility to no purpose.

What do you mean by low level format? Can I blank the total drive somehow by a procedure? How is it done?

You tried 3rd party LOW LEVEL Format software?

(NOT Disk Util, Windows, or even the RR2642 = high level formatting)

What I'm talking about, is the same formatting that's done by the manufacturer the first time the drive's powered up. The creation of the MBR,... mapping of the sectors,... It COMPLETELY wipes out the drive (data, including all protected areas; doesn't touch the firmware). Hopefully, there's even one available from the drive manufacturers website. :0

Here's a site that offers links to manufacturer specific versions. IIRC, some data recovery software has this type of utility in it.

Take a look and let me know.

 

[gugucom]

This is tedious business. I downloaded WD's tool for the drive which was the original drive of my Mac Pro. I zeroed the first and last milion sectors but it did not change the status of the drive.

Then I downloaded the LLF tool of HDDguru.com and started the app. It is still running. Keep the fingers crossed!!

 

[nanofrog]

This is tedious business. I downloaded WD's tool for the drive which was the original drive of my Mac Pro. I zeroed the first and last milion sectors but it did not change the status of the drive.

Then I downloaded the LLF tool of HDDguru.com and started the app. It is still running. Keep the fingers crossed!!

Start to finish takes time. Very tedious indeed.

BTW, what controller is the drive attached to now?

 

[gugucom]

Start to finish takes time. Very tedious indeed.

BTW, what controller is the drive attached to now?

It is the integrated SATA/RAID controller of my old Shuttle PC. It is running under XP32.

I got no response from it when I tried the WD Windows tool. Then I burned a DOS one to CD and that at least saw the drive and zeroed the start and end, but did not erase the bad drive info.

The guru tool ran on it for 10 h but was unresponsive when I got back to the machine. So I started it again. It has to do 4,3 Billion sectors and seems to go through a million in a bit under 1h. It could take four months to go through this!

 

[nanofrog]

It is the integrated SATA/RAID controller of my old Shuttle PC. It is running under XP32.

I got no response from it when I tried the WD Windows tool. Then I burned a DOS one to CD and that at least saw the drive and zeroed the start and end, but did not erase the bad drive info.

The guru tool ran on it for 10 h but was unresponsive when I got back to the machine. So I started it again. It has to do 4,3 Billion sectors and seems to go through a million in a bit under 1h. It could take four months to go through this!

It's definitely a slow process.

BTW, it would be advisable to go ahead and reboot between completion and attempting to access it (mount). Can't hurt.

 

[UltraNEO*]

if it's a fairly new drive, why not attempt to return the unit to the supplier? perhaps it's one of the defective units. I've had a few in my time and no amounts of low-level formatting would make the drive truly reliable and if your using it with raid, you're gonna be asking for problems.

 

[nanofrog]

if it's a fairly new drive, why not attempt to return the unit to the supplier? perhaps it's one of the defective units. I've had a few in my time and no amounts of low-level formatting would make the drive truly reliable and if your using it with raid, you're gonna be asking for problems.

It's the OEM drive that came with the MP, which is an '06 model.

I don't know if WD would recognize the balance of the Manufacturer's warranty or not, given the fact they technically sold it to Apple, who's warranty has presumably expired (how German law handles this).

 

[UltraNEO*]

It's the OEM drive that came with the MP, which is an '06 model.

I don't know if WD would recognize the balance of the Manufacturer's warranty or not, given the fact they technically sold it to Apple, who's warranty has presumably expired (how German law handles this).

With the exception of SAS and enterprise drives. HD's in general are so cheap those days, dunno why the OP doesn't just replace it, it'll just saves time and effort.

 

[gugucom]

With the exception of SAS and enterprise drives. HD's in general are so cheap those days, dunno why the OP doesn't just replace it, it'll just saves time and effort.

It is not for economic reasons I tried to recover the drive. It just bugs me totally to know that the thing is in perfect working order. Only the effing SATA card screwed it up that no other controller can use it. If I fit it back to the SATA card it works but I'm returning the card.

I may have to abandon the effort anyway because the tools I found work from booting off a IDE CD and expect the HDD on another IDE master. My only PC has only one IDE connector.

 

[nanofrog]

With the exception of SAS and enterprise drives. HD's in general are so cheap those days, dunno why the OP doesn't just replace it, it'll just saves time and effort.

That'd be my take on it, but the issues are usually signs of failure anyway (wear due to age/usage).

But I understand gugucom's POV. It's technically functional, and the issue was caused by a POS Highpoint RR2642, not the usual early signs of failure. I'd want it back to working order too (any SATA port, no matter the controller chip), just on principle.