Hard disk errors (RAID)

Chris_F · Apr 21, 2010

My windows even log is littered with "The device, \Device\Ide\iaStor0, did not respond within the timeout period."

I have 4x160GB WD Caviar Blues in RAID10 and today (twice) my computer has frozen and when I restart it, it comes up (during POST) saying that the 3rd disk in my array has an error. I have to shut it down again. Unplug the SATA cable to it, reboot (up until the point where it lists the drives) and then shut it back down, plug it back in, and THEN it works. Of course, the drive has to be rebuilt once in windows.

This has happened at least two other times before. Always drive number 3.

Bad HDD? Bad SATA cable? Software/Hardware issue?

Thanks for any help.

w2richwood · Apr 22, 2010

had it happen to me it was nothing but the cable hope you have the same luck
Rich

Chris_F · Apr 22, 2010

Ok, now two disks went out. It has to either be faulty power cable (already replaced the power cables once) or there is a drivers/hardware issue.

Chris_F · Apr 23, 2010

Ok, it just happened again. Computer froze up for like 60 seconds and then recovered. This is AFTER I've replaced all the power and data cables.

I don't think it's the drives.

deathman20 · Apr 23, 2010

It depends. I had an error but I've had normal operation the past few days. Scanned the drives, did a backup when I got into windows and never has happened since.

Though an error can be a pre-cursor to something bigger, or it could of courrupted files which you might be getting a degrading experiance and ever expanding issue that only way to solve is to find out what drive it is and replace it.

1 Drive can screw up a whole Raid0 array.

Chris_F · Apr 23, 2010

deathman20 said:
It depends. I had an error but I've had normal operation the past few days. Scanned the drives, did a backup when I got into windows and never has happened since.

Though an error can be a pre-cursor to something bigger, or it could of courrupted files which you might be getting a degrading experiance and ever expanding issue that only way to solve is to find out what drive it is and replace it.

1 Drive can screw up a whole Raid0 array.

Well, I'm having disks get kicked off left and right, all the time now for no reason.

Chris_F · Apr 23, 2010

Choosing to use raid has been the biggest mistake I've ever made. It's been nothing but a constant nightmare. I should have just saved up for a SSD or something.

JCLW · Apr 23, 2010

Recent (past year or two) WD drives have had trouble in RAID environments. Mainly the Green drives, but your symptoms sound similar.

WD released two tools to set drive timeout times that may help you.

The first is called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) - the filename is usually WDTLER.EXE. In a non-RAID environment you want the drive to spend as much time as possible recovering data, so TLER is disabled. In a RAID environment you rely on the RAID controller to recover the data (from the other drive(s)) so you want to set the TLER value somewhat lower then the timeout value of your controller (ie: if your controller will wait 10secs then set the drives to 7secs) to prevent timeouts.

The second is called IDLE3 - the filename is usually WDIDLE3.EXE. Normally the OS and controller control when the drives sleep, but some WD drives will put themselves into a low-power state after a pre-determined length of time. This causes problems because the controller and the OS think the drive is ready to go, but in fact it takes time to wake up and causes a timeout.

There are two versions of WDIDLE3 around - 1.00 and 1.03. Some drives can only be set with one particular version.

deathman20 · Apr 24, 2010

Well WD drives do have drives specifically for raid. As well Black Drives work very well too. Not sure on blue drives how those handle it since I know they are pretty similar to blacks. Though Green WD drives are the worse because of there idle states are set different to conserve energy.

As well got to look at it this way to, its 160Gig HDD's those can be very old.

Chris_F · Apr 24, 2010

JCLW said:
Recent (past year or two) WD drives have had trouble in RAID environments. Mainly the Green drives, but your symptoms sound similar.

WD released two tools to set drive timeout times that may help you.

The first is called TLER (Time Limited Error Recovery) - the filename is usually WDTLER.EXE. In a non-RAID environment you want the drive to spend as much time as possible recovering data, so TLER is disabled. In a RAID environment you rely on the RAID controller to recover the data (from the other drive(s)) so you want to set the TLER value somewhat lower then the timeout value of your controller (ie: if your controller will wait 10secs then set the drives to 7secs) to prevent timeouts.

The second is called IDLE3 - the filename is usually WDIDLE3.EXE. Normally the OS and controller control when the drives sleep, but some WD drives will put themselves into a low-power state after a pre-determined length of time. This causes problems because the controller and the OS think the drive is ready to go, but in fact it takes time to wake up and causes a timeout.

There are two versions of WDIDLE3 around - 1.00 and 1.03. Some drives can only be set with one particular version.

I'm sure this has to be the reason. It had happened occasionally up until I updated my BIOS, then it started happening practically on an hourly basis.

Getting WDTLER to work was a a major pain, and in the end, it only works on 3 of my 4 drives.

I have 3x WD-1600AAJS-60M0A0 and 1x WD-1600AAJS-00L7A0 which won't respond to WDTLER...

This is a nightmare.

Chris_F · Apr 25, 2010

And that solved absolutely nothing...

JCLW · Apr 25, 2010

Are you sure it is not a loose cable? I put a small dab of silicone on my SATA cables when I plug them in because I've had them come loose before (make sure you don't get it on the contacts).

Chris_F · Apr 25, 2010

JCLW said:
Are you sure it is not a loose cable? I put a small dab of silicone on my SATA cables when I plug them in because I've had them come loose before (make sure you don't get it on the contacts).

I've replaced every single cable 3 times just to be sure.

Chris_F · Apr 26, 2010

The drives I applied the 7 second WLER to are still getting kicked for no reason.

Chris_F · Apr 26, 2010

Well, to hell with RAID. I just ordered a single drive, never going to RAID on a personal computer again. I blame Western Digital for sabotaging their disks.

Randyman... · Apr 26, 2010

Bad Controller perhaps?

I see you mentioned you changed SATA cables - have you checked the power cables, too? I had an intermittent Insulation Displacement power connector on my Raptors that was causing me grief until I replaced them...

PS - Hardware RAID5 and RAID6 FTW

Best thing I ever did as far as keeping my data safe IMNSHO (2 redundant RAID arrays backing each other up)...

deathman20 · Apr 26, 2010

Does alll drives pass SMART check? Still saying that age of the drives might be playing into the affect of it failing.

Chris_F · Apr 28, 2010

It's not the cables. I replaced every sing cable 3 times over. The drives are brand new, I just bought them. None of them are reporting any errors on their own. All of them are subject to getting kicked, even after I set the TLER. The problem was existent even with my stock BIOS, and when I upgraded my motherboard BIOS the problem got even worse.

Randyman... · Apr 28, 2010

So - Are you using the specific RAID edition WD Drives as suggested? Or are you running the WD Green drives that have been known to exhibit this issue on certain RAID controllers? Edit - I see you have the Blue series - I'm not familiar with those at all.

RAID is a beautiful thing - especially for redundancy with RAID5 and RAID6. I'd NEVER go back to a single drive data array again. It might leave a bad taste in your mouth ATM - but I bet you'll be back

RAID-0 also has its place as long as you back up religously. Hardware RAID controllers are a step above onboard when talking RAID5 and RAID6 FWIW...

JCLW · Apr 28, 2010

Since the problem changed when you upgraded your motherboard BIOS then maybe your motherboard maufacturer (MSI?) is not implementing the intel RAID firmware correctly?

Are you using the latest intel drivers?

Hard disk errors (RAID)

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