One hard drive in RAID1 turns off then on again

[goombawaho]

On my old geezer computer with RAID1 IDE drives, one of the hard drives is shutting down and starting back up very randomly and only twice so far. I hear it going click off and then spooling back up. Just once and then back to normal.

Wondering how to troubleshoot this. I could run a hard drive test on each one separately, but as long as it didn't spool down during the test, I don't think the test would show anything. So if both pass the test, I don't know which one is causing the problem.

I believe these are too old to have SMART.

I can't run with one drive disconnected because if the that's the bad drive, I might lose data if it craps out.


Well, just as I was going to post this, wondering if it's a power supply issue. I heard a click and the PC just shut down. It IS on a UPS, so it's not a power issue.

 

[BadBigBen]

if it is a PSU issue then that is simply fixed, just replace the PSU with a known good working one...

SMART technology goes back to 1996 (concept to 1992), so if your drives are dated after that, then the monitoring software should work...

you could also place the drives further apart, then with the side off, if the drive spins down again, place a hand on one and you could feel which drive is acting up...

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

I think I can trace it now. The RAID monitoring utility finally showed something in the event log corresponding to when the drive spooled down/up and started re-mirroring. It mentioned like "port 2", so I should be able to figure it out from there.

Also in the monitoring utility, I could see which disk was re-mirroring in the visual depiction of the two drives. If I pull one and boot it up, I can see the correct drive has been pulled.

I don't like having computer problems MYSELF. It's supposed to only happen to other people.

 

[BadBigBen]

{quote]I don't like having computer problems MYSELF. It's supposed to only happen to other people. [/quote]me neither...

but strange stuff does happen, e.g. yesterday my PC turned completely off right after my keyboard dropped to the floor, and would not turn back on FULLY (mainboard got power but not the HDD's) resetting the PSU (pulled power-cord and held power-on button for 15 sec.) brought everything back to life... ;-)


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Now the follow up question and I've had this one for quite a while. What percentage of the time would you say that (in a single hard drive configuration) the hard drive spooling down and back up is the fault of the hard drive itself vs. the power supply.

Any feeling 90/10, 50/50. I've had to make that "guess" a few times and always replaced the drive and have always been right, but I don't know how to really diagnose it NOT having one of those fancy power supply testers.

 

[BadBigBen]

Goom,

your guess is as good as mine on that one... ;-)

but I would think it to be around 70 : 30, 70% for the HDD being the problem, and 30% for the PSU... PSU's having no mechanical parts that move, would just age and deteriorate slower than an HDD, which does have moving parts...

but like you said, it's a guessing game...


Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Thanks for the help. I have a hard drive on order to make my RAID whole again. I'm paranoid even using the computer with one hard drive while other people only HAVE one hard drive and maybe no backup.

 

[BadBigBen]

I can understand the hesitation, and probably would do the same, had I not stocked up a bit on the HDD's, and now, looking at the HDD prices, was a smart move... ;-)


as you always say: Back up! Back up! Back up!

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

Well, I pulled the "bad" drive and ran the WD diagnostics on it. It came back that it needed to fix some problems and I let it do that. Then the code came back as 0223 (problems fixed).

I'm not going to trust it though. I don't see how a "repairable problem" would cause the drive to spool down and (the one time) my entire PC to shut off.

So, again, I'm wondering if I got the right source of the problem. Haven't had any funny business running with the RAID1 minus one drive since though.

 

[BadBigBen]

Goom,

it would seem so, seeing that you haven't had any problem since... ;-)



Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[goombawaho]

I'm taking a wait and see attitude. I'll wait and see if I have to smash the computer with a hammer if any more misbehavior crops up.