HDD about to fail!!

Hodge · 8 Feb 2009 at 15:12

I have 2 WD Raptors 10,000rpm installed on raid 0 on a IP35 pro mb. this system was prebuilt from OCUK 13 months ago. yesterday i installed a new GF GTX 295 card. today when starting the pc at the post page i see a Error msg for 1 of the drives but windows vista still boots but i get a msg that a drive is about to fail backup data now!!. I have reseated all sata and power connections same error. what happens if i remove the raid0 from the mb config? is it a case of reinstalling Vista again or can i use some drive copy software and transfer this to a new HDD?. i do still have my old pc working with XP and a data link cable.

swinnie · 8 Feb 2009 at 15:35

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redundant_array_of_independent_disks#Purpose_and_basics

RAID 0 (striped disks) distributes data across several disks in a way that gives improved speed and full capacity, but all data on all disks will be lost if any one disk fails.

Surely not a good idea?

Hodge · 8 Feb 2009 at 16:04

Thanks Swinnie. Not what wanted to hear with 75gb of FSX and 68gb of FS9 to reinstall.

ChrisLX200 · 8 Feb 2009 at 19:06

If you can image the partition now before the disk fails you can restore that image back to your new RAID array. Assumes you've got the disk space on a separate drive of course - but you only need as much as the data actually occupies [a bit less if you use compression]. If you're really desperate you can use DVD disks for the backup, I know that works because I had to do once.

jakspyder · 8 Feb 2009 at 19:19

i had the same problem a while back my 1tb spinpoint was giving the same error, and high HDD activity just crashed the pc i RMA'd it and got a new one within a few days, had to send all my stuff to a mate to backup as he had spare HDD space lol. goodluck with the backups! :S

Hodge · 8 Feb 2009 at 20:09

As i type this on my spare old pc Paragon drive copy 9.0 is runing. Lucky i had a spare HDD in this old pc ( i just knew there was a reason to keep it).

Phil2008 · 9 Feb 2009 at 03:06

Do you need software on your pc for it to say your hdd gonna fail, or is that build into vista??

lettuce · 9 Feb 2009 at 18:59

Ive had this 3 times now with my 2 x 300GB WD VelociRaptors, i have the same mobo as you. The first time i got the error was after 24 hours of setting up the RAID 0 Array, the next time took 2-3 weeks before falling over, and now this time (just yesterday) was about 6-8 weeks.

I am now trying for the fourth time, if it happens again, im going to sell the raptors and just get a 1TB F1 drive. I know its not the drives at fault as have tested them when they havent been in a RAID setup and all results have come back 100% healthy, so im guessing it must be the RAID controller on the ABIT IP35 Pro!?