RAID 1 issue

[#1]

I have two 8TB internal HDDs under a RAID 1 array that I set up around 6 months or so ago under W11 Pro that had been working great with no issues since.

Last week I needed to re-install W11 as I wasn't happy with all my VSTs and other audio and video software being spread over several NVME drives and all went well till I looked for the RAID 1 drive which used to show as 8TB called BackUp.

It didn't show in explorer but they did show in Disk Management both as seperate drives and Off-line. I clicked them On-line then they both showed Rescheduling (at least I think that's what it showed). After several hours and a reboot both drives showed ss Healthy with the same amount available and used and both with the title 'BackUp' but with no drive letter so still no show in Explorer.

My question is thus; can I change the fiirst to an unused letter which would force the second to the same letter? Or could I change both drives to the same letter or is something else going on which needs more drastic measures to fix?

One thought is that as only 30% (around 2.5TB of each drive is used) I could change one drive letter to, say, J then copy all the data to a spare 5TB drive then restart a brand new RAID 1 with the two 8TB drive which fully passed various disc checkers.

Any advice greatly accepted.

[#2]

@Mav 

Not that i help you directly but I performed a Gemini and CoPilot AI search on your post, amazingly they came up with similar answers.

I copied/pasted your complete post..

[#3]

@Dan_the_Van 

Appreciate the reply but not keen on the use of 'AI'. But with the absence of any other suggestions...

[#4]

It doesn't look like you have much choice really.

If it were me, I might do the minimum to map a drive and make a copy of the data.

I might also think about disconnecting one drive (essentially simulating a drive fault) so if it all goes wrong there is a second copy of the data.

In your possition, in future I might also think about getting a NAS for your big RAID drives. It won't take the drives "as is" but it might be a better place to be once you have recovered the data. 

[#5]

@markhawkin 

I think that sounds like the best option. Pretty sure the data is intact on both drives just hoping it's accessable.

I'm about to move the PC to another room so will also do the annual spring clean at the same time giving me the opportunity to open up and disconnect a drive. 

A NAS would be nice but out of my budget at present.

[#6]

@Mav 

Maybe consider a disk enclosure with RAID 1 set at a hardware level, the only limitation would be the USB speed your PC supports

For what it is worth I use a raspberry pi4 using the above as a NAS using smb for the network share , drives format is NTFS so they can be connected to a windows PC.

[#7]

I've got a bit of a collection of Synology NAS units for different purposes and the older units can be quite reasonable second hand.

For a simple file storage setup something a few years old would be fine (arguably better than their current product).