a drive in a RAID 0 is failing

[Rich T]

Hello,

Shortly after installing Vista SP1 I have started to get message "a drive in
Raid 0 is failing".

This sounds bad. I have tried running checkdisk on my hard drive but it does
not show any problems.

If I reinstall the OS from scratch, will it fix the problem? Or is this a
hardware problem?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi Rich,

It is bad, and it's a hardware issue that will not be fixed by reinstalling
the operating system. If a drive fails in a RAID0 array, you will lose
everything on that array as the data stream is split between the drives
(commonly referred to as striping), niether will contain the full data set,
there is no failsafe in a striped set.

Backup data NOW, first and foremost, do not delay. You can check the state
of the drive with an integrity tool from the drive manufacturer, it should
tell you which one is failing (it'll list them by serial#, you need to pull
the disks to determine which one it is). You will need to replace the
failing drive, then reinstall from scratch unless you possess imaging
software and can capture an image before the inevitable collapse.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Kerry Brown]

Hello,

Shortly after installing Vista SP1 I have started to get message "a drive
in Raid 0 is failing".

This sounds bad. I have tried running checkdisk on my hard drive but it
does not show any problems.

If I reinstall the OS from scratch, will it fix the problem? Or is this a
hardware problem?

The other response have given you very good advice. Back up your data now!
I'll give you some more advice. When you replace the drive (if it needs
replacement, more in a minute) don't set up RAID 0. If you do, use a
dedicated RAID controller (not a motherboard controller) and drives that are
designed for RAID use.

Now for the more info. The drive may not be failing depending on your setup.
If you have used a motherboard RAID controller and standard consumer hard
drives this may just be a timing problem. The results will inevitably be the
same, you will lose all the data on the array so you do need to backup now.
Most motherboard RAID controllers use the computer's CPU. A real RAID
controller has it's own CPU. Motherboard controllers are really a form of
software RAID with some hardware assistance. Most consumer hard drives are
not designed for RAID. With RAID 0 the controller tries to queue commands to
the disks in order to use them more efficiently. Most consumer drives don't
support this. How does all this affect you? If you are stressing out the CPU
then try to perform some intensive disk I/O the drives may not respond in
time (or too fast) and get out of synch with the RAID controller. This
causes the controller to think there is a drive error and report the drive
as failing. If this happens enough times the RAID controller will eventually
give up on the drive and take it off line. Because RAID 0 has no redundancy
when the drive goes off line you lose all your data even though the drive is
fine, it was all just a timing problem.

 

[Rich T]

OK, I have backed up as much as I can.

Backing up and reinstalling would be fine if Microsoft put all configuration
data in one place, but as it is spread all over the hard-disc taking a back
up is not straightforward. OK, I back up "Documents" - but then there is
Outlook data buried somewhere, fax data buried somewhere else, windows media
player metadata buried somewhere else, favourites in another locationm and
so on - and there is no point in even tryingto back up configurations and
settings.

But having done all that, the crash still has not happened. In the end, I
just fiddled around in the Intel Raid controller software and set it to
ignore the problem and so far no crash and no more warnings.

If it does crash, I'm all set to go back to XP. The only thing that has been
making me stick with Vista until now is that a full reinstall is so much
work - maybe this will make me bite the bullet...