First time using RAID, array failed within hours.

Tesla · 18 Mar 2009 at 23:53

Hi guys,

Been meaning to go RAID1 for ages so bought a second WD 5000AAKS. Backed up all of my data to a couple of external HDD's incase of any issues and also can remove the partition table and start a fresh.

I have partitioned off 60gb and installed Vista after having issues with installing XP (BSOD upon installation of intel chipset drivers which then prevented Windows from booting).

The array has been reported as degraded so I rebuilt within Windows Vista.

It has now reported as degraded again whilst formatting off a 300gb data partition.

As I only installed Vista around mid-afternoon today this is all rather sudden!

I have now reverted to IDE mode and booted up my WD diagnostic CD to test the brand new hdd (the one that has reported as failing both times).

A quick test reveals no problems and a quick google reports lots of weird issues with the ICH9 chipset when using for RAID.

I am now running the extended test on the disk and will go from here.

Would it be worthwhile zero'ing both discs or is the ICH9 indeed crap and I should get a proper RAID controller?

If the latter which controller is decent?

Thanks,

Chris

Hodders · 19 Mar 2009 at 00:30

I have been running a Raid 1 array on an ICH9R controler for months with no issues. I am using RE (Raid edition) western digital disks (WD5000ABYS) which may be a key difference.

Craig321 · 19 Mar 2009 at 00:37

I've been running RAID 0 on my ICH9 controller for over a year now without a problem. Might just be a bad drive, or even a bad controlled

Tesla · 19 Mar 2009 at 01:29

I'm going to zero both drives, check AAM and go from there I think.

linktoinsanity · 19 Mar 2009 at 09:34

Yeh I've had 2x Seagate 7200.10 500GBs in RAID 0 and now have 2x WD Black 640GB RAID 0 and haven't yet had problems. Try again, you may have just been unlucky.

NickK · 19 Mar 2009 at 10:36

There's a new driver for the Intel SATA controller for window/vista etc.

Antar Bolaeisk · 19 Mar 2009 at 13:06

By any chance would you be using a Gigabyte Board? Just asking as my RAID array died in spectacular fashion due to the on-board network card interfering with the SATA controller, disabled the on-board network card and everything is working perfectly now.

Greenlizard0 · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:14

Why do people at home use RAID1? :confused:

Craig321 · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:17

Greenlizard0 said:
Why do people at home use RAID1?

I've not seen the point in RAID1 at home either, it only protects against hardware failure, so not much point unless your computer is vital.

Reality|Bites · 19 Mar 2009 at 15:26

check for a bios update for your motherboard, My board needed a bios update to fix RAID issues.

Hodders · 19 Mar 2009 at 16:25

Greenlizard0 said:
Why do people at home use RAID1?

I use it because I have a lot of photos and music on my PC, yes it gets backed up to an external disk, but rebuilding an array is far faster than rebuilding an OS, installing all the apps, restoring all the data etc.

Plus hard disks are so cheap it makes sense, also read speeds are better than no raid (in theory).

Tesla · 20 Mar 2009 at 08:22

Greenlizard0 said:
Why do people at home use RAID1?

I have a home office that I run my business from hence important data.

Right, I have the latest BIOS, latest chipset and latest Intel Matrix drivers.

I have zero'd off both drives. Swapped them to different SATA ports.

Rebuilt a new array and within a couple of hours the array has degraded, once again the culprit is the new WD drive.

WD Diag tools show the drive as error free still though.

Any further ideas?

Tomsk · 20 Mar 2009 at 08:56

TLER problem perhaps.
Have a read of this - http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1285254

HTH

Tesla · 20 Mar 2009 at 10:07

Running the WDTLER app i get a critical error, no code and the app crashes.

JTrickle · 20 Mar 2009 at 15:32

Tesla said:
(BSOD upon installation of intel chipset drivers which then prevented Windows from booting).

What was the exact name of the raid driver you installed at the F6 stage?

Tesla said:
... a quick google reports lots of weird issues with the ICH9 chipset when using for RAID.

How many people out there, do you think, have ICH9 mobo's?

Tesla · 20 Mar 2009 at 18:06

JTrickle said:
How many people out there, do you think, have ICH9 mobo's?

Hundreds of thousands, your point?

I worked out where I was going wrong with the WDTLER app, I changed over to 7s and started from scratch again. Just re-installing the matrix manager now etc.

Tesla · 26 Mar 2009 at 08:39

Well a few days on since changing the WDTLER parameter and touch-wood have had no failures since.

Cyber-Mav · 26 Mar 2009 at 10:20

is that the idle timer on the drives? if so i used wdidle tool to disable the idle timer on all my wd drives otherwise they would keep parking the heads every 8 seconds and easily exceed thier head park reccomended limit within 100 days of use.

Tesla · 27 Mar 2009 at 10:24

Cyber-Mav said:
is that the idle timer on the drives? if so i used wdidle tool to disable the idle timer on all my wd drives otherwise they would keep parking the heads every 8 seconds and easily exceed thier head park reccomended limit within 100 days of use.

This link will explain better than I could.

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc...mwmcF9wYWdlPTEmcF9zZWFyY2hfdGV4dD1UTEVS&p_li=