RAID1 backup made to primary question

Question

My m18xR2 laptop has three hard drives. (system info at bottom) A 256GB ssd and two 1TB drives that i was running in RAID1. The RAID1 setup was not updating all the time but updated when i pressed ctrl + I at startup.  The other day i plugged my phone in and was going to updated a few things with itunes and something happened and everything in itunes seemed to lock up. After rebooting, windows loaded very slowly. i could not open the start menu or anything in the system trey.  ctrl+alt+del was the only thing that seem to respond but only for a few seconds. After another restart running scandisk it completely stopped booting and i got an error saying that the OS could not be loaded. Unfortunately i had not yet backed everything up to an external HDD or anything. I had backed up the RAID1 to the second disk a few days before.     My question is how do i use the backup to repair the first disk or set what was the secondary drive to the primary one?   is this possible?   Could this be a virus? I usually can figure out these problems but this is my first time dealing with RAID and not sure where to start. Do I physically swap these two drives or is there more to it?   I pasted system info from AIDA64 program sorry if its overkill:  Computer Type ACPI x64-based PC  (Mobile)Operating System Microsoft Windows 7 UltimateOS Service Pack Service Pack 1Internet Explorer 10.0.9200.16686DirectX DirectX 11.0 Motherboard CPU Type Mobile QuadCore Intel Core i7-3840QM, 3600 MHz (36 x 100)Motherboard Name Alienware M18xR2Motherboard Chipset Intel Panther Point HM77, Intel Ivy BridgeSystem Memory 32720 MB  (DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM)DIMM1: SK Hynix HMT41GS6MFR8C-PB 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM  (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz)  (10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz)  (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz)  (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz)  (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz)  (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz)  (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)DIMM2: SK Hynix HMT41GS6MFR8C-PB 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM  (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz)  (10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz)  (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz)  (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz)  (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz)  (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz)  (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)DIMM3: SK Hynix HMT41GS6MFR8C-PB 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM  (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz)  (10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz)  (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz)  (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz)  (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz)  (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz)  (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)DIMM4: SK Hynix HMT41GS6MFR8C-PB 8 GB DDR3-1600 DDR3 SDRAM  (11-11-11-28 @ 800 MHz)  (10-10-10-27 @ 761 MHz)  (9-9-9-24 @ 685 MHz)  (8-8-8-22 @ 609 MHz)  (7-7-7-19 @ 533 MHz)  (6-6-6-16 @ 457 MHz)  (5-5-5-14 @ 380 MHz)BIOS Type Insyde (01/31/2013) Display Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680M  (2 GB)3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce GTX 680MMonitor Samsung 184HT  [18.4' LCD] Multimedia Audio Adapter Creative CA0132 @ Intel Panther Point PCH - High Definition Audio Controller [C-1]Audio Adapter nVIDIA HDMI/DP @ nVIDIA GK104 - High Definition Audio Controller Storage IDE Controller Realtek PCIE CardReaderStorage Controller Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID ControllerDisk Drive HGST HTS721010A9E630  (1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)Disk Drive HGST HTS721010A9E630  (1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)Disk Drive SAMSUNG SSD PM830 2.5' 7  (238 GB, IDE)Disk Drive SDHC Card  (1863 GB)Disk Drive WD Ext HDD 1021 USB Device  (29 GB, USB)Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRWBD CA40N  (BD:6x, DVD+RW:8x/8x, DVD-RW:8x/6x, DVD-ROM:8x BD-ROM/DVD+RW/DVD-RW)SMART Hard Disks Status FAIL Partitions C: (NTFS) 917.8 GB (505.8 GB free)D: (NTFS) 917.8 GB (474.0 GB free)E: (NTFS) 14010 MB (5743 MB free)F: (NTFS) 238.5 GB (168.9 GB free)        thanks for any help!

osprey4 · Answer

Hi SamHainGuy,

It's not clear to me where your operating system is loaded. Is it the SSD? As far as the backup, to restore a backup, you need to use the same program used to create the backup to restore it. For example, with Acronis, you boot to the application CD and go from there. If you used Windows Backup and Restore, you follow their instructions.

SamhainGuy · Answer

Hello Osprey,

I had the OS located on one of the two RAID1 drives. They are both listed as "Disk Drive HGST HTS721010A9E630 (1000 GB, 7200 RPM, SATA-III)" The SSD drive is used for accelerating/caching. I'm starting to think maybe i just did not have it set up right and should start over. Is it better to use RAID1 or back it up with a program like Acronis? i do have that program already.

jackshack · Answer

Please pardon the intrusion, but having read your original complaint, I believe you have a mistaken impression of how RAID works. If you truly have your hard drives configured as a RAID 1, there is no way to update the mirror manually, and no need to do that in the first place. Once the drives are configured as RAID 1, the system treats the two drives as a single drive. The only software in the operating system that is able to see the individual drives is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology software that allows you to manage your RAID from within the operating system. All other operations on the RAID treat the two drives as a single hard drive. The mirror is updated automatically by the firmware that controls the RAID.

If you have been repeatedly bringing up the RAID configuration screen by pressing CTRL and i during the appearance of the status screen, you could have caused damage to your RAID. The configuration screen gives you the ability to destroy a RAID as well as configure one. I don't know what selections you have made while you were using that screen, but you may have damaged some files as a result.

I'm not that familiar with repair procedures for Windows, but I believe that if you cannot repair your installation using the Windows installation DVD you may need to reinstall your system from the ground up.

Storage, Drives & Media

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