Array failure probably due to corrupted drive

[MurrayFoote]

I recently purchased a Terramaster DS-300. I set it up for RAID 5 and it was working for a while, backing up my files with Acronis.

I now appear to have a disk corruption problem rather than a RAID problem.

Acronis returns an error message with each backup operation “The operation is not supported” and it says “cannot open the backup” which is on the Terramaster RAID. Looking at the drive for the Terramaster RAID on Windows Explorer or TreeSize, I get a message “The volume does not contain a recognised file system”. Windows Explorer also asks me if I want to format the drive. Disk Management shows the drive as having a RAW file system.

Trying to repair the drive with chkdsk /f /r /x does not work.
• “The first NTFS boot sector is unreadable or corrupt. Reading second NTFS boot sector instead.”
• “A disk read error occurred. The disk does not have enough space to replace bad clusters” (57 times)
• An unspecified error occurred (6e74667363686b2e b33).
• An unspecified error occurred (6e74667363686b2e 1729).

Is this likely to be one corrupt disk in the (5-disk) array? (The unit did not signal any bad disks before this happened).

If this is the case and one disk is corrupt, if I pull out that disk, will the array work and Windows recognise the array drive, pending replacing that disk?

Or should I run chkdsk on each disk one by one?

Or is there another course of action?

[TMS]

Disk Management shows the drive as having a RAW file system.

Hi,
1 Fix it by the following command:
Open the command prompt of the windows computer and enter chkdsk H: /f (H stands for the drive letter of the hard disk), and finally press "Enter" to execute.
2. If not, you can only get a data recovery company to do data recovery.

[MurrayFoote]

I don't need to do data recovery because it's backup data and I have another copy on the cloud.

I already did chkdsk /f /r /x and that didn't work.

I had four other questions following that...

(1) Is this likely to be one corrupt disk in the (5-disk) array?

• The unit did not signal any bad disks before this happened

(2) If this is the case and one disk is corrupt, if I pull out that disk, will the array work and Windows recognise the array drive, pending replacing that disk?

• Can I hot swap or do I need to close down, take out the disk and reboot?

(3) Or should I run chkdsk on each disk one by one?

(4) Or is there another course of action?

[TMRyan]

Hi

1. I don't know any more information about you. It is very likely that there is a problem with HDD. If the HDD fails, the RAID Manager terminal will prompt that a certain HDD has failed.

2. In normal RAID5 mode, it can work normally if one HDD is missing. Therefore, your problem is that the file system of the disk partition is damaged and the file system partition cannot be mounted.

3. Currently, it is not necessary to perform manual CHKDSK repair for each HDD. Repairing an incomplete RAID5 partition file system is useless.

4. When RAID5 synchronization is required, it is feasible to replace a new HDD in the power-on state and to replace the HDD in the power-off state.

[MurrayFoote]

Hi and thank you.

So should I try formatting the RAID drive and if that works starting again backing up?

[MurrayFoote]

.. or should I maybe delete the Raid, reformat and check each disk, then recreate the RAID and reformat the RAID drive?

[TMRyan]

Yes,
If your data has been backed up, you should delete the Raid, reformat and check each disk, then recreate the RAID that reformat the drive.

[MurrayFoote]

OK. Thank you.

[MurrayFoote]

I seem to have run out of solutions, RAID solutions at any rate.

Before buying the Terramaster I had a Drobo, with the same disks in it. The Drobo was 10 years old and the disks, HGST 3TB, are 8 or 9. The Drobo seemed to be in a startup loop and Windows repaired the disks when starting up at one point, so the troubles date to then, perhaps caused by the Drobo.

When I deleted the Terramaster RAID (as recommended in the previous comment by TMRyan), the disks came back in RAW format. I could not recover them using Disk Management but I used Paragon Partition Manager Community Edition to format them as NTFS. I also used Paragon to Test Surface and Check File System for each Disk and also the regenerated RAID, on two occasions.

I could get a RAID up but then Acronis hung up 2.5% of the way into a backup task and the RAID was no longer accessible. I had to delete the RAID for each disk one at a time and then reformat them. Seeing I can't seem to get a RAID to work, I am starting backing up to the disks as just a JBOD array. (Maybe I'll also identify suspect disks that way if that is a problem).

Any comments of potential solutions would be appreciated.

[TMroy]

It is time to think about buying new drives. Something wrong in your 9 or 8 years drives. please refer to instruction to check your drive health.
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