DD10 Creates RAID conflict

I have been using DD10 with no prblems for a while but have run into a problem with a new RAID 1 setup. It sees the RAID set as one drive and I have created an extra partition on it with no problem.
But when I resized a partition on another drive (not part of the RAID set) it did the resize fine but along the way created a RAID conflict. The result was a 10 hour rebuild of the drives plus a Vista alert the drive was about to fail, although right now I believe this to be Vista's response to the conflict.
Surely DD isn't meant to create such conflicts - and how do I avoid them? Thanks.
The RAID 1 is a hardware set using two external eSATA drives controlled by a Sitecom card - which uses a Silicon Image 3512 chip.

 

When you resized the partition, was in it Windows or from the DD CD? If Windows, did it need to reboot?

 

I used DD in Windows for the resize, and yes it did require a reboot -- so I could see DD perform the resize before the Windows load.
But this was after the Silicon Image part of BIOS had run so I took it the RAID set would be seen as a unit. But if that's not the case how could I work around?
Would it work to disconnect the RAID set with everything shut down (my MB doesn't support hot swapping for SATA), perform the resize and then reconnect? That would be a pain but better than the 10 hour rebuild.

 

What MudCrab was getting at was that if a reboot is required, Disk Director boots into the same Linux recovery environment that is used on the bootable recovery CD. Apparently, your RAID driver is not supported properly in this mode.

Try booting your PC from the recovery CD in "Full" (Linux) mode. Can you see the RAID array as one disk or does it appear as two? If the latter, then that confirms what happened to you and means that the required Linux RAID driver isn't present in the build of DD 10 that you're using. Build 2160 is the latest, as of this date.

To work around, try booting from the recovery CD in "Safe" (DOS) mode. I would be willing to bet that the array will be seen properly in this mode, and you should be able to repartition without corrupting the array.

 

k0lo, thanks for the post.
I am on build 2160, so the next resize I do I will try the workaround.

 

Actually, I think that DD will do "reboot" partition operations by hooking into Windows on boot-up (like when you run a chkdsk). If that can't be done, then it probably boots into the Linux mode.

Most of us prefer to avoid starting partitioning procedures in Windows that require a reboot because if something goes wrong you don't have any control. It either aborts and makes no changes or screws it up. If you boot to either the Full or Safe Mode versions, you can control each step and see if it works or not.

 

MudCrab, thanks for the post. Looks like I need to get more used running DD from a bootable CD. I have tried to keep away from that because of the issues I had with TI and booting from CD -- it took several iterations with Vladimir to get to CD image that would work for me and what I have now is non-standard.
What types of DD operations don't require a reboot?
For those operations that would need a reboot would I do better to use the Windows Disk Management utility, where it has the functionality?

 

For DD you will probably be successful using the Safe Mode version; it will avoid the issue of missing Linux drivers. If you're only modifying your internal disks then Safe Mode is all that you need. The Full Mode version adds network and USB support which you probably don't need when partitioning your internal disk(s).

Operations that affect the Windows system partition or any partition containing an active Windows paging file will almost always require a reboot. Operations on other partitions, like a simple data partition with no open files, will usually work successfully without a reboot. Personally, I've gotten in the habit of always doing partition operations from the boot CD so that Windows can't interfere.

This will depend on whether you are running XP or Vista. If XP then you can use Windows Disk Management for a very limited number of operations. It won't let you modify the system partition, for example, nor will it let you resize partitions so it is more limited in capability than DD.

If Vista then you need to be careful. If you've created your partitions with Vista Disk Management or Vista DiskPart or while installing Vista then they conform to the new large-sector standard and are aligned on 1 MB (2048-sector) boundaries. Assuming you haven't done any partition operations on them with DD then you can use Vista Disk Management and take advantage of the added features that allow you to shrink and expand partitions.

However, if you've been using DD to modify your Vista partitions or if they were created by XP or any of the existing partitioning tools then they probably conform to the older standard and are aligned on cylinder (63-sector) boundaries. If that's the case then DO NOT use Vista Disk Management to modify them or you risk corruption and data loss. Keep using your older tools, like DD or XP Disk Management, and you'll be fine.

 

k0lo, thanks -- very helpful. So far I have always used DD for disk management so based on your caution on cylinder boundaries will stick with it as I am running Vista.
Since I ran into the RAID conflict problem whilst resizing a partition on a non-RAID data drive it looks that I will need to keep with DD in safe mode for all future disk management.