Trouble with SATA hard drive - multiple apparent failures

[srcollins77]

Hi all. I will be thankful if anyone can help me out on this one.

I'm building a new computer. Some of the relevant components are:
Motherboard: Asus A8N-E
Hard drives: 4 x Western Digital 2500KS (250 GB, SATA 3.0)
Processor: AMD Athlon X2 4800+
RAM: 3.0 GB PC3200 XMS series from Corsair
Power supply: ANTEC TruePower 2.0 (550 Watts)

Here's the history of my problem:
Originally instead of 4 250GB hard drives, I bought 2 250GB drives and two 74GB raptors. One of the raptors was not recognized by system and so I decided to send both back, get two more 250GB drives, and set up a RAID0+1 array. I got the new drives, set up the array and installed Windows XP Pro.

Upon the first reboot, I got errors from my RAID controller indicating errors on both of the two new 250GB drives and a degraded RAID array.

As far as I can tell, the original two 250GB drives are working well. I've tried rebuilding the array and I got corrupt file errors within Windows.

It seemed unlikely to me that both of my new drives are defective, so I'm wondering if I may have a SATA cable problem or a motherboard issue.

I tried swapping out the SATA cables for a pair of older SATA cables I had from a previous computer build. I cleared and reset up the RAID array and tried to install windows, but the disk formatting process was very slow and in the end I got an error message saying that Windows could not set up a partition on the new drive. I worried that these older cables might not be up to standard, and so I bought new cables (which say 150MB/s), and I am attempting to install one of the new drives as a JBOD array. So far, the results have not been encouraging.

Anyone have any thoughts? Does this sound like a motherboard issue? Or should I look for new 300MB/s cables?

Thanks for whatever help you can provide.

 

[rvnguy]

Just as a matter of procedure, I always initialize & format any drive prior to using in any setup RAID or not. This just allows a couple of things. You know that drive is functioning and you can also run diags before comitting it to use.

From your post it is difficult to dicern what steps you have or have not taken. Did you convert these drives to "Dynamic" before attempting to rebuild the array with them?

Too many questions...please post back with procedural particulars.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[paparazi]

My only thought was memory? Corsair XMS, what voltage and timings are you using? have you tried just one stick?
Setup can be difficult especially when fully populated.

Martin



We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[srcollins77]

Thanks for your replies guys. Here are some more details:

I have 3GB of the Corsair XMS RAM installed in 4 sticks (2x1GB + 2x512MB). The timing settings were: 333MHz, 3-3-3-7 (those detected by my Motherboard). I have not tried using just one stick, although I have (to a limited degree) checked the memory using Memtest86.

I did not try specifically format and initialize the drives prior to setting up the RAID. Maybe I should try to do that in the future. The Windows installation process did include an early and very long drive formatting process, though.

I did not set the drives to Dynamic before trying to rebuild the arrays. I wasn't aware that was an issue.

I have, at the present, done the following:

1) Initial Installation - I installed the two new 250GB drives in my computer when they arrived. I immediately set the 4 drives up as a RAID0+1 array by RAID enabling the new drives and configuring the RAID array. I then tried to install Windows. Windows formatted the RAID drive and installed while I was asleep. When I got back to it I couldn't move the mouse (on the would you like to adjust your screen resolution step). I restarted the computer, and I got the RAID errors. Windows was still able to boot and seemed OK using the degraded RAID array carried by the two original drives.

2) 2nd Attempt with RAID0+1 - I deleted the RAID array, reset it up, and tried to install Windows again. The installation seemed to work fine, except that when I rebooted, I got the same RAID errors.

3) Attempt to rebuild the array - For reasons that I can only describe as hopeful, I tried to rebuild the array to see if that would work. I did this by simpling going into the RAID setup, deleting the two "Error" arrays, adding the two suspect drives back to the main array and hitting "R" for rebuild. I did nothing else to reconfigure the drives. With this setup, I rebooted. I did not get any RAID errors prior to Windows starting. However, in Windows I started to get corrupt file error messages.

4) Swapping SATA cables - I was worried that my SATA cables might be the problem (perhaps they got damaged somehow in all my cable swapping to determine that one of the original 74GB drives was bad?). I had two older SATA cables from a previous computer build, so I tried using those instead to connect the two new drives. After putting in these cables, I rebooted, deleted and reset up the RAID0+1 array, and tried to install Windows again. This time the drive formatting step was painfully slow (maybe half or 1/3 the speed of before). At some point this formatting process sped up and completed, but when it completed I got an error message saying Windows was unable to create the partition. I figured that trying my old cables might have been a mistake.

5) Memtest86 - To try to rule out my RAM as a problem, I ran Memtest86. I did not let the program finish, but I let it run for almost three hours, getting 3 passes and 0 errors.

6) Power supply voltages - Measuring using ASUS probe, my power supply voltages seem to be stable at 3.31 V, 4.95 V, and 11.9 V

6) Trying a single new drive as a secondary drive - I bought a new SATA cable from CompUSA to make sure my cable wasn't a problem. I connected only one of the new drives using a new SATA cable. I set up the original two drives as a RAID1 array and installed Windows on that array. It seemed to work well and I got no errors. I set up the new drive as a separate JBOD array (I had trouble installing it as non-RAID disk, although I think I now know how to do that). I set up the JBOD drive to format and left work. When I left the progress was at 9%. When I returned home, progress was at 11%. I canceled the format, did a quick format, and tried running CheckDisk. CheckDisk was very slow. I let it run over night. In the morning, the progress bar said 95% complete. An hour and a half later, it still said 95% complete. I canceled the CheckDisk (although I'm trying another now that I will run to completion).

7) My own benchmarking - Since the drive seemed slow, I put an approximately 1 GB file on the new drive and tried copy and pasting it to compare the performance to my RAID1 array. The new drive copied the file in about 3 minutes. My RAID1 array copied it in about 20 seconds.

8) Trying the new drive in another system - Currently, I am trying the new drive in my old system. For fear of messing something up with my well-functioning drives in that computer, and for lack of other ports, I installed the new drive using a RAID controller SATA port on that computer. I did a quick install and ran my same benchmark test on the drive. The new drive copied an 800MB file in about 2 minutes, whereas my old 320GB drive copied the same file in approximately 20 seconds. I am currently running a CheckDisk on the drive using my old system. It looks like it is ~85% complete, but I probably won't see it finish until I get home from work.

I hope you find these extra details clarifying rather than long-winded, and I'd appreciate whatever advice you can give.

 

[rvnguy]

Looks a though you have don most all except convert to Dynamic.

Volume sets and RAID arrays are created on dynamic drives and are only accessible to Windows 2000 and later

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/maintain/optimize/c11w2kad.mspx

Dynamic Diska

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Freestone]

Dynamic disks in the case you are quoting are used when Windows 2000 is providing the RAID function, i.e. software RAID. This is not the case here.

 

[srcollins77]

As an update, my CheckDisk came back with no errors (after a really long time), but I also tried to benchmark the new drive using the Sandra Lite program. Sandra could not give a speed and reported a drive error. I'm pretty sure there's something wrong with that drive. I'll check the other drive and see if it's OK.

 

[rvnguy]

I have not created a RAID 0 array but have done many RAID 1 & 5 arrays. The quote below specifies that arrays must have the drives converted to 'dynamic' drives and this obviates the usual function of partitioning.

Volume sets and RAID arrays are created on dynamic drives and are only accessible to Windows 2000 and later. Windows XP Professional supports two types of disk storage: basic and dynamic. Basic disk storage uses partition-oriented disks. A basic disk contains basic volumes (primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives). Dynamic disk storage uses volume-oriented disks, and includes features that basic disks do not, such as the ability to create volumes that span multiple disks (spanned and striped volumes).

Articles:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windows2000serv/maintain/optimize/c11w2kad.mspx

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044

So one would create the striped array using all space then create volumes within this array.

This is the procedure for all other arrays and I suspect it is the same for RAID 0.

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[rvnguy]

Can't delete my own mis post above???

Freestone
I do not believe that this pertains to only win2x as the docs specify win2x or later and not only 'soft raid'. Do you have reference to the contrary?

rvnguy
"I know everything..I just can't remember it all

 

[Freestone]

Drives do not need to be dynamic if using hardware-based RAID. Hardware-based controllers have no idea about dynamic disks nor should they. Dynamic disks are a Microsoft implementation and the articles you are referencing have to do with Windows doing all the RAID functions, i.e. software-raid.

 

[firewolfrl]

OK, This is what I would do:
1) setup just one drive and load windows on that drive (no raid)
2) benchmark and test the system. I use a piece of software to burn in and find any fault in the RAM or CPU called Prime95
homepage:

http://www.mersenne.org/freesoft.htm

Download:

http://mersenne.org/gimps/p95v2414.exe

I usually run 2 or 3 benchmark software at the same time to really load the system

I am not as impressed with Memtest86 it does not always find errors in the RAM

I would RMA the Drive.


good luck

 

[srcollins77]

Thanks for the replies. I tried running Prime95 on my system (with Windows installed on the two old drives) for about 8 hours and got no errors. I haven't tried running duplicate copies at once.

I sent back the one drive that I'm sure is bad. I was able to benchmark the other one using Sandra Lite without errors, so it may be OK.

Hopefully that will be the end of the story.

 

[firewolfrl]

Glad you have a working system. Prime95 is a great program ...it rules out Heat, CPU, chipset, & memory problems.
good luck and let us know how the new drive works