Storage Spaces stopped working - has retired all 4 of my drives


  1. Posts : 4
    Windows 10 Pro
       #1

    Storage Spaces stopped working - has retired all 4 of my drives


    Hi everyone,

    At a bit of a loss as to how to get my data back, I dont really care too much about the drives themselves.
    I've posted the question at other places but no one has really responded/knows what to do.

    Story:

    I have Used Storage spaces for about 4 years with 4 x 3TB Seagate NAS hard-drives

    Moved house over the weekend and reconnected the computer to the network and it worked fine last night.

    Today however the Virtual Storage Space drive is gone but can be found in "manage storage spaces" with the error "inaccessible; check the Physical drives section"

    In the physical drives section:

    -Each drive shows up as attached, % used, Providing its capacity with - "Error, Retired; add a drive then remove this drive"

    It shows the same for all 4 drives.

    How do I fix this. Surely not all 4 drives died overnight. There have been no power surges overnight and the computer itself seems fine otherwise.

    Storage Spaces stopped working - has retired all 4 of my drives-img_0058.jpg

    The CrystalDiskInfo when done said all the drives were Healthy.

    I cannot see them in Disk Management - only in Device Manager
    I have tried some basic powershell commands that I found online:

    In Get -PhysicalDisk:

    Each drive has the following info:

    CanPool: False, OperationalStatus: {Failed Media, IO Error, OK], HealthStatus: Unhealthy, Usage: Retired


    In Get-StoragePool it shows two different FriendlyNames:

    Primordial:

    Operational Status: OK, HealthStatus: Healthy, IsPrimordial: True, IsReadOnly: False, Size: 10.97TB, AllocatedSize: 10.92TB

    Storage Pool:

    Operational Status: Read-Only, HealthStatus: Unhealthy, IsPrimordial: False, IsReadOnly: False, Size: 10.91TB, AllocatedSize: 10.78TB

    In Get-VirtualDisk:

    FriendlyName: Storage Spaces, Resiliency: Parity, FaultDomain: 1, OperationalStatus: Detached, HealthStatus: Unhealthy, Size: 7.27TB, Footprintonpool: 10.78TB, StorageEffeciency: 66.66%

    Does anyone know whats happened?
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 42,737
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #2

    Hi, few here are expert on this, I think, but you may be lucky.. I had a look around and found this which may be of interest- see the 6th comment:
    After spending a few more hours on YouTube looking at everything about Storage Spaces,
    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...2-964881ae81e7

    It seems simple volumes can be a problem when things start to go astray.


    I also suggest you download and try Hard Disk Sentinel (trial/paid) - SSDs too- and see what it says about each disk right on its GUI. Best immediately comprehensible comment I know, even on connectivity.

    Given you have moved the kit, worth trying.
    Last edited by dalchina; 23 Feb 2020 at 03:00.
      My Computers


  3. Posts : 4
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #3

    dalchina said:
    Hi, few here are expert on this, I think, but you may be lucky.. I had a look around and found this which may be of interest- see the 6th comment:


    It seems simple volumes can be a problem when things start to go astray.


    I also suggest you download and try Hard Disk Sentinel (trial/paid) - SSDs too- and see what it says about each disk right on its GUI. Best immediately comprehensible comment I know, even on connectivity.

    Given you have moved the kit, worth trying.
    Thanks. I have just downloaded HD Sentinel Trial:

    Each of my Disks that storage spaces have marked as retired show the following:
    -Performance: 100%
    -Health: 100%
    The hard disk status is PERFECT. Problematic or weak sectors were not found and there are no spin up or data transfer erros. No action is needed
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 42,737
    Win 10 Pro (22H2) (2nd PC is 22H2)
       #4

    Sorry, lost the link when editing: (added back in my #2)- see
    https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...2-964881ae81e7
      My Computers


  5. Posts : 920
    Windows 10 Pro
       #5

    I have found this post on technet :
    I am in the exact same scenario as you OP except I was unable to access the drive as read-only using powershell commands, it just hangs and never mounts. I was however able to access my data and copy paste it to another drive using

    TestDisk - CGSecurity

    It's a band-aid and not a real fix but if you have important data you need to salvage it does the job. If anyone manages to actually find a fix please let us know, thank you.

    The entire post is here : https://social.technet.microsoft.com...e-failuresquot
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #6

    Hi folks
    OK I can't help with the Storage Spaces problem -- with the exception if you have an image of the OS saved somewhere a restore of the OS and re-boot might possibly give you access to the storage spaces again.

    If you can recover the data on these HDD's my advice is NOT to use Windows storage spaces --they have been known to break frequently especially between major Windows releases. If you need this type of "Compound Volume" type of feature and don't have a dedicated NAS -- then you would IMO be far better off in getting a RAID HDD controller card if possible.

    Another solution is to get a 4 HDD enclosure and use as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) or RAID 0 or RAID 1 depending on the resilience you need.

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 4
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #7

    Pejole2165 said:
    I have found this post on technet :
    I am in the exact same scenario as you OP except I was unable to access the drive as read-only using powershell commands, it just hangs and never mounts. I was however able to access my data and copy paste it to another drive using

    TestDisk - CGSecurity

    It's a band-aid and not a real fix but if you have important data you need to salvage it does the job. If anyone manages to actually find a fix please let us know, thank you.

    The entire post is here : https://social.technet.microsoft.com...e-failuresquot
    Ill give this TestDisk a go. If I can get the data back, then I really dont care. I can always wipe them and start again. I have purchased a 10tb hard drive over the weekend so can copy files to that if this program works. Thanks

    - - - Updated - - -

    jimbo45 said:
    Hi folks
    OK I can't help with the Storage Spaces problem -- with the exception if you have an image of the OS saved somewhere a restore of the OS and re-boot might possibly give you access to the storage spaces again.

    If you can recover the data on these HDD's my advice is NOT to use Windows storage spaces --they have been known to break frequently especially between major Windows releases. If you need this type of "Compound Volume" type of feature and don't have a dedicated NAS -- then you would IMO be far better off in getting a RAID HDD controller card if possible.

    Another solution is to get a 4 HDD enclosure and use as JBOD (Just a Bunch of Disks) or RAID 0 or RAID 1 depending on the resilience you need.

    Cheers
    jimbo
    Yeah, I've definitely learnt my lesson. I actually back up all my NAS data to backblaze. Problem is its $290 bucks in my local currency to get them to send a hard drive with the stuff on there. So my data is "gettable".

    It was originally done so that I could use it all for a plex media server, when I had some folders which were bigger than the hard drives themselves, and I didnt "fork out" for a raid controller at the time. I reused an old PC. Will definitely never go back to storage spaces once this is over though.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 11,247
    Windows / Linux : Arch Linux
       #8

    maccaman8 said:
    Ill give this TestDisk a go. If I can get the data back, then I really dont care. I can always wipe them and start again. I have purchased a 10tb hard drive over the weekend so can copy files to that if this program works. Thanks

    - - - Updated - - -



    Yeah, I've definitely learnt my lesson. I actually back up all my NAS data to backblaze. Problem is its $290 bucks in my local currency to get them to send a hard drive with the stuff on there. So my data is "gettable".

    It was originally done so that I could use it all for a plex media server, when I had some folders which were bigger than the hard drives themselves, and I didnt "fork out" for a raid controller at the time. I reused an old PC. Will definitely never go back to storage spaces once this is over though.
    Hi there
    @maccaman8

    If you've a spare old PC why not use that also as a Backup system -- if you install almost any version of LINUX with SAMBA (for sharing files with Windows) and install ntfs-3g and mdadm (software RAID which is very efficient in Linux) then you can backup / save all your files to "Compound" HDD's as per RAID 0 / RAID 1, RAID 10 or whatever you want.

    As for media serving I use KODI on an amazon fire TV stick -- no need for a "Server" on the NAS.

    If you don't have experience with Linux test first as a VM --Linux Mint is good for beginners --these days it's almost "More Windows than Windows itself" !!!!. Linux also will run on very old hardware of almost any vintage -- doesn't need a lot of computer resources for simple file serving.

    If using RAID for multiple HDD's on a Linux Virtual Machine on a Windows HOST ensure the HDD's are mounted on the Virtual machine as RAW Physical volumes so you can let Linux set up the RAID arrays without Windows formatting any file system on those HDD's -- format the RAID HDD's on the Linux system via mkfs.<fstype) /dev/sdx -f

    vmware player is free and works fine -- the Linux HDD's will be readable in Windows via SAMBA and network sharing.

    Cheers
    jimbo
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 4
    Windows 10 Pro
    Thread Starter
       #9

    jimbo45 said:
    Hi there
    @maccaman8

    If you've a spare old PC why not use that also as a Backup system -- if you install almost any version of LINUX with SAMBA (for sharing files with Windows) and install ntfs-3g and mdadm (software RAID which is very efficient in Linux) then you can backup / save all your files to "Compound" HDD's as per RAID 0 / RAID 1, RAID 10 or whatever you want.

    As for media serving I use KODI on an amazon fire TV stick -- no need for a "Server" on the NAS.

    If you don't have experience with Linux test first as a VM --Linux Mint is good for beginners --these days it's almost "More Windows than Windows itself" !!!!. Linux also will run on very old hardware of almost any vintage -- doesn't need a lot of computer resources for simple file serving.

    Cheers
    jimbo
    Thanks. I did a lot of research into this about 6 years ago when I decided to go with this setup and havent done much with it since. We have a "newer" old computer which I have just transferred the drives to and added a 10TB drive to try transfer files (if we can access them). The newer older computer is certainly more than sufficient for the task of "media server", though I'm wondering whether to get a dedicated NAS enclosure.

    I had my old one setup using SABNZBD, Sonarr and Plex Media Server which ran flawlessly for 5 years, all pretty much automated. Im sure it could be done on Linux but when I looked, i just wasnt dedicated enough to learn it. Will have to look into Linux Mint.
      My Computer


 

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