0

I took HDD from a computer that was running RAID 1. I have inserted that drive into another computer expecting it to be immediately recognized. It is not recognized, and Windows can't activate it.

Second drive of that RAID 1 is still in the original computer and works fine, albeit Windows is obviously reporting degradation, because it's missing the first drive.

Can't someone advise on what is the procedure if I want to take drive from RAID 1 and run it in different computer to see the data? I thought I should be able to do that since it's just RAID 1?

The new computer is an HP laptop running latest Windows 10. The drive is connected to the laptop through 3.5' enclosure with it's own power supply using a USB 3 cable. The disk management screen on the laptop looks a follows (I apologize for the localization, it's my parents laptop). The line with Disk 1 is reported as DYNAMIC and INVALID:

Disk Management console view

If I navigate into the right click menu and attempt to activate the disk, I get this error message:

Error upon activation

This says "This operation is not allowed for invalid disk package."

masiton
  • 65
  • 3
  • 11
  • Need a screenshot of disk management with the drive connected. – Moab Dec 24 '18 at 16:41
  • How was the RAID created on the original computer? In Windows or in the BIOS? If the latter it is possible the RAID is not readable by Windows on another computer at all. – Tonny Dec 25 '18 at 10:03
  • The raid was created as a software RAID 1 using Windows' Disk Management console on the original computer. Please see updated post, I've included description of the setup and screenshots of the error. – masiton Dec 26 '18 at 23:01

2 Answers2

1

I have found an answer in another question posted here:

the following are the steps "diskpart > select volume > break" unplug the disk, plug into another machine "diskpart > select volume > add > recover" quite straight forward

masiton
  • 65
  • 3
  • 11
0

RAID1 is backed up by each other. The data of the two disks is exactly the same. When one of the disks is taken out and put on other computers, because the hardware information changes, so the activation on the original computer is invalid. We need to re-activate it on other computer.

The RAID1 disk can directly view the data on other computers. If we can't read it, it may be the following causes：

  1. The hard disk connection is incorrect.

  2. The hard disk cable has a problem.

  3. Put back the original computer to rebuild the RAID to see if it works.

  4. Check the hard drive itself for problems.

  5. The other reasons.

Daisy Zhou
  • 991
  • 1
  • 5
  • 4
  • This answer is incorrect and/or misleading. A RAID1 is a mechanism that keeps data on 2 independent drives, but doesn't dictate how exactly are the data written or accessed. Just because you've set up a RAID1 array, it doesn't mean they are both formatted with single NTFS partition that is somehow synchronized. The data might be written in binary, completely garbled up, and another software layer would be responsible for decoding them, so to the user, it would appear seamless. – masiton Nov 22 '19 at 20:04