Question : Problem: TROUBLE WITH RAID 10 ARRAY, DONT KNOW HOW TO PROCEED TO SAVE DATA

HI THERE

SYSTEM IS ABIT AL8 MB, Intel ICH7R RAID CONTROLLER IN RAID 10(4 HDD), WIN 2003 SERVER.

THE PROPLEM I AM HAVEING IS THAT I WAS REPLACING ALL HDD IN MY CURRENT RAID 10 ARRAY. HOW I DIDIT WAS TO REPLACE EACH ONE OF THE OLD 4 SATA GEN1 DISKS WITH NEW GEN2 SATA DISKS ALLOWING ARRAY TO BE REBUILT EACH TIME, ALL WAS GOING WELL UNTILL I NODDED OFF DURING THE 4TH HDD REBUILD. WHEN I WOKE UP THE SYSTEM SCREEN WAS BLANK THE MOUSE WORKED BUT NO SYSTEM RESPONSE. I COULDNOT CONNECT INTO IT USING REMOTE DESKTOP SO AS THERE WAS NO HDD ACTIVITY I TURNED OF AT REAR AND RESTARTED.

DURING POST THE INTEL RAID BIOS SHOWED  ASSAY AS DEGRADED AND DISK 4 (THE LAST TO BE INSTALLED) AS SOMETHING LIKE UNKNOWN ERROR.
SO I JUST THOUGHT I WOULD LET IT RESTART AS ALL OTHER MEMBER DISKS WERE OK, BUT WITHIN A FEW SECONDS OF THE "WINDOWS SERVER 2003" STARTUP SCREEN THE SYSTEM RESTARTS, AS YOU CANT DO ANY ADMIN THROUGHT THE BIOS AND THE SYSTEM WONT RESTART I THEN DISCONNECTED THE 4TH HDD AND THE BIOS THEN REPORTS ASSY AS DEGRADED BUT STILL NO RESTART.

I THEN SWAPED ONE OF THE OLD HDD TO THIS POSITION BUT NO BETTER.

THEN I REPLACED THE SATA DATA CABLE AND PUT THE NEW DRIVE BACK IN. NOW THE ARRAY STATUS IS "REBUILD" BUT STILL NO RESTART

I HAVE ANOTHER RAID ARRAY ON A DIFF CONTROLLER SO I THINK I SHOULD INSTALL A COPY OF XP AND INTEL STORAGE MATRIX . BUT I AM NOT SURE WHAT THE BEST STATE FOR THE ARRAY SHOULD BE IN PRIOR TO BOOTING UP XP AS I THING THE RAID WILL REBUILD AUTOMATICALLY, SHOULD I LEAVE THE 4TH DISK OUT AND REPLACE WITH NEW DRIVE OR SHOUL I JUST REBOOT WITH THE 3 DRIVES IN ARRAY TO GET DATA OFF ARRAY WHILST IN ITS DEGRADED STATE.

CAN ANY DATA BE TAKEN OFF ANY DRIVES BY ANY OTHER MEANS.
PLEASE HELP BECAUSE I AM REALLY STUCK AND DONT WANT TO LOOSE DATA

REGARDS

GAVIN

Answer : Problem: TROUBLE WITH RAID 10 ARRAY, DONT KNOW HOW TO PROCEED TO SAVE DATA

certainly, I would mount the first pair, usually 0 & 2, try to boot from just that pair.