Question : Problem: Promise Raid 5, 3 drives with 2 down... can I recover.

I have a Promise Raid 5 system with 3 disks.  When I booted the system, I noticed the array down.  When I tried to rebuild the system from the Windows utility, it didn't do anything.  No error, no message of any kind.

So I rebooted into the BIOS utility and see that 2 drives are there but no longer part of the defined array.  Only one of the drives is still part of the array.

Is there any way to get the data back?  I have not done anything else to the drives, and have not turned the system back on.

Answer : Problem: Promise Raid 5, 3 drives with 2 down... can I recover.

Ok I have news.  I am one happy camper right now!  My data is safe!  Here's the stroy.

The guy at Promise was very nice and knew what he was talking about.  I HIGHLY suggest you talk to them and try their workaround first.  He says that the RAID information is saved on the last 64K of the drives.  I guess that last 64K on my drives 3 and 4 became corrupt.  He also said it was a 50/50 chance that this could work but if it didn't I can still try the software solutions later.  I mentioned the Runtime software but he'd not heard of it.  He did mention something called "R Studio?" I have not looked into it.

The fix...  He had me go into the RAID BIOS and tell him ALL the details on the existing array.  Then he had me delete the array and create a new one using all 4 drives again and using the exact same settings.  PLEASE call them and have them guide you through this process to be on the safe side.  There was a setting to watch out for that will erase all the data on the drives instead of only the array info.  

Now in my case the e-mails from PAM (Promise Array Management) said that drive 4 began a rebuild a few times but failed.  Drive 3 never had a rebuild start.  So he had me exit the RAID BIOS after making the new array and then shut off the system before it booted.  Then I had to disconnect the power to Drive 4 and turn the system back on.  When it got to the RAID BIOS it gave me a warning that the array is critical, because that one drive is disconnected.  After windows started (note my OS is not on the array but a seperate drive) PAM says that the array is Critical now and not Offline.  I checked in My Computer and my F: drive is back.  I opened some files and it all seems to be in tact now.  :-)

Next step: I am looking at getting a backup device of some sort to imediately backup all my data before I attempt to reconnect and rebuild Drive 4.  He suggested that I connect Drive 4 to a standard IDE controller and run the manufacturer diagnostics to be sure it is still ok.  Any suggestions on good backup devices?

Let me know if you have any questions and how your recovery goes.  I totally understand how you feel FSYR.  :-)