- Joined
- Aug 17, 2001
System specs:
Abit KD7-RAID Bios DN
HPT372 Raid Controller(onboard) with Bios 2.32
2 Maxtor 30g 7200rpm ATA100 HDs partitioned into 4 partitions and setup in RAID 0 array. Each on their own cable and both set as Master. Both Hard drives were Diamond Plus 60
Athlon XP 2100+ not overclocked(was OC'd 3+ months ago with no problems but summer time and too warm in room)
Windows 98SE
Actually made a post about the exact same problem previously but I'll restate since this has now happened twice.
About a month ago it seemed that one of my hard drives in my RAID 0 array crapped out on me. Computer was working perfectly fine one evening. Turn on computer the next day and it wouldn't boot into Windows. I could see the information on the drives and was even able to take a file off the drive that I needed. Ran Maxtor's Powermax program while the hard drives were still hooked up to the RAID controller and in the RAID 0 array. The program was able to see both the hard drives and apparently test them each. One hard drive passed all the tests while the other hard drive failed the SMART attribute check and SMART self-test. Wondering if perhaps the RAID setup might be giving me false results, I disconnected them from the RAID array and hooked them up to the normal IDE connectors and ran the tests again. Exact same results. One hard drive showed perfectly fine and other gave the SMART test failures.
RMA'd the apparent bad drive and was sent a refurbished 30g 7200rpm ATA133 drive. This one was a DiamondMax Plus 8.
Tested the replacement drive with Powermax and it showed no problems. Hooked both drives up to the RAID controllers in a RAID 0 array. Tried to test them again but this time the Powermax program couldn't see them. I had flashed the MB Bios to the most recent version but no change was made to the RAID controller version.
Partitioned the RAID array into 5 partitions and installed Windows 98SE on the C: partition. Was testing things out on it last night just installing drivers and whatnot. Came home today and was going to reformat the C: partition and reinstall Windows but I couldn't reformat. Was told the drive had an error on it and the disk was unusable. Tried to run scandisk and was told there was an unfixable error in Sector 8036(something like that). Unpartitioned the drives and took them out of the RAID array and hooked them back up to the regular IDE connectors. Ran Powermax on them both.
Orginal hard drive that tested fine previously and was not RMA'd was suddenly showing the exact same errors as the drive I had just RMA'd. SMART attribute check failure and SMART self test failure.
Replacement drive that tested fine when I got it passed the SMART attribute check but failed the SMART self test.
I think Maxtor is going to question if I try to RMA 2 drives at the same time especially considering one is a replacement for a drive I RMA'd less then 2 weeks previously. I just don't know if I just happen to be getting bad drives or if somehow the motherboard/RAID controller is trashing them. The hard drives were used in my Abit BX133-RAID in a RAID 0 array for quite some time with no apparently trouble. When I upgraded to the XP 2100+, I purchased the Abit KD7-RAID board for it brand new. It was purchased in December of last year so it's not very old. The hard drives were running in it since.
Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
<EDIT> This is kind of weird. The replacement HD that was failing one of the tests, suddenly passed the test after I repartitioned and reformatted it(out of the RAID 0 array). I tried the same on the older hard drive but it still fails.
I found a S.M.A.R.T test utility that gives me all types of information and it shows that the older hard drive has a life critical problem. Something about how many times it has to try and spin up the platters. Showed a few other problems also but it was the Spin retries that were critical. The replacement drive shows fine though. I'm guessing one drive is bad but I'm worried the problem is being caused by my MB/RAID controller.
Another item of interest is I found a patch on the HP site that had to do with S.M.A.R.T monitoring software that apparently came with some of their computers. It was to fix a problem with the computer giving a warning of Maxtor HD failure for attribute 10 which just happens to be the attribute that is showing bad for me. Now this is a homebuilt system so the patch does nothing for me but makes me wonder if I truely have a problem or if maybe the patch provided to those HP owners was just to cover up a potential problem with their drives.
Abit KD7-RAID Bios DN
HPT372 Raid Controller(onboard) with Bios 2.32
2 Maxtor 30g 7200rpm ATA100 HDs partitioned into 4 partitions and setup in RAID 0 array. Each on their own cable and both set as Master. Both Hard drives were Diamond Plus 60
Athlon XP 2100+ not overclocked(was OC'd 3+ months ago with no problems but summer time and too warm in room)
Windows 98SE
Actually made a post about the exact same problem previously but I'll restate since this has now happened twice.
About a month ago it seemed that one of my hard drives in my RAID 0 array crapped out on me. Computer was working perfectly fine one evening. Turn on computer the next day and it wouldn't boot into Windows. I could see the information on the drives and was even able to take a file off the drive that I needed. Ran Maxtor's Powermax program while the hard drives were still hooked up to the RAID controller and in the RAID 0 array. The program was able to see both the hard drives and apparently test them each. One hard drive passed all the tests while the other hard drive failed the SMART attribute check and SMART self-test. Wondering if perhaps the RAID setup might be giving me false results, I disconnected them from the RAID array and hooked them up to the normal IDE connectors and ran the tests again. Exact same results. One hard drive showed perfectly fine and other gave the SMART test failures.
RMA'd the apparent bad drive and was sent a refurbished 30g 7200rpm ATA133 drive. This one was a DiamondMax Plus 8.
Tested the replacement drive with Powermax and it showed no problems. Hooked both drives up to the RAID controllers in a RAID 0 array. Tried to test them again but this time the Powermax program couldn't see them. I had flashed the MB Bios to the most recent version but no change was made to the RAID controller version.
Partitioned the RAID array into 5 partitions and installed Windows 98SE on the C: partition. Was testing things out on it last night just installing drivers and whatnot. Came home today and was going to reformat the C: partition and reinstall Windows but I couldn't reformat. Was told the drive had an error on it and the disk was unusable. Tried to run scandisk and was told there was an unfixable error in Sector 8036(something like that). Unpartitioned the drives and took them out of the RAID array and hooked them back up to the regular IDE connectors. Ran Powermax on them both.
Orginal hard drive that tested fine previously and was not RMA'd was suddenly showing the exact same errors as the drive I had just RMA'd. SMART attribute check failure and SMART self test failure.
Replacement drive that tested fine when I got it passed the SMART attribute check but failed the SMART self test.
I think Maxtor is going to question if I try to RMA 2 drives at the same time especially considering one is a replacement for a drive I RMA'd less then 2 weeks previously. I just don't know if I just happen to be getting bad drives or if somehow the motherboard/RAID controller is trashing them. The hard drives were used in my Abit BX133-RAID in a RAID 0 array for quite some time with no apparently trouble. When I upgraded to the XP 2100+, I purchased the Abit KD7-RAID board for it brand new. It was purchased in December of last year so it's not very old. The hard drives were running in it since.
Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
<EDIT> This is kind of weird. The replacement HD that was failing one of the tests, suddenly passed the test after I repartitioned and reformatted it(out of the RAID 0 array). I tried the same on the older hard drive but it still fails.
I found a S.M.A.R.T test utility that gives me all types of information and it shows that the older hard drive has a life critical problem. Something about how many times it has to try and spin up the platters. Showed a few other problems also but it was the Spin retries that were critical. The replacement drive shows fine though. I'm guessing one drive is bad but I'm worried the problem is being caused by my MB/RAID controller.
Another item of interest is I found a patch on the HP site that had to do with S.M.A.R.T monitoring software that apparently came with some of their computers. It was to fix a problem with the computer giving a warning of Maxtor HD failure for attribute 10 which just happens to be the attribute that is showing bad for me. Now this is a homebuilt system so the patch does nothing for me but makes me wonder if I truely have a problem or if maybe the patch provided to those HP owners was just to cover up a potential problem with their drives.
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