array offline

[spd]

This is my 1st post, although i've used this board before to solve some problems in the past

here are my specs:
msi kt266 pro2 ru
antec 465ep ps
crucial 2x256 pc2100
athlon xp1900+
twin wd 30gig raid 0

here's my problem:
occasionally when i boot, i get the message array offline & the promise fast track utility menu appears. This machine is about a year old & i've gotten this message before, but lately it's appearing about every 5th boot. to resolve this i power off pull the 2 power connectors to the drives. re-connect, reboot & all is well.
my mbm dashboard readings are:
ambient 27c
cpu 33c.
+12v 12.21

this is my old system which someone wants to buy. i'm hesitant in selling without solving this annoyance. any suggestions will be appreciated thx

 

[wquiles]

It could be that a drive in the array is slowly dying - not much you can do if that is the case.

Could also be your powert supply going bad, but your Antec is a good brand, so that is less likely.

Can you replace the cables with new/different ones to see if you have a cable that is "iffy"?

 

[spd]

have tried different cables, rounded ata100/133. is there anyway to run the wester digital diagnostics on the raid array?

 

[nikhsub1]

have tried different cables, rounded ata100/133. is there anyway to run the wester digital diagnostics on the raid array?

Doubt it. Just take the raid drives and plug them into the regular IDE slots... then boot from the utility disk and run the tests. This should not harm the data or the array.

 

[spd]

have downloaded a firmware fix from western digital; wdnewcfg.exe. i've applied this patch & have not had any offline messages yet. will let all know if this solves the problem

 

[spd]

it's been 3 weeks since applying the firmware patch from w.d.
not a single array off line message. reading the log file after applying the patch only one drive was updated with the new firmware. i bought these drives from newegg on the same order qty = 2. i find it strange that they had different firmware rev's.

 

[jlin453]

Good to hear everything's working out. I seriously cringe when I read "array offline". I've experienced my array going offline on past harddrives and it was NO fun