SATA drives w/ RAID - drive problem or ?

ethics05 · 02-12-2009, 08:51 AM

Compaq Presario 8000T P8656T w/ (2)80GB SATA drives w/ RAID 1. Drives are connected via separate cabling – Port 1 and Port2 on module. System disk contains drivers for RAID. Windows XP Home.

System is 5 yrs old problem free until now. Thought I may have a defective drive, but not sure.

Symptoms: Occasional blue screen of death on power-up boot. A USB External hard drive (for back-ups) is sometimes “not seen” in My
Computer and sometimes a bell rings as the ext drive blinks and “is found”/ “not found” like and blinking on/off. Tried other USB Ports and does same thing. Works perfectly connected to my laptop. Sometimes hangs when transferring files from ext to drive c. Both Firefox and IExplorer log off unexpectedly intermittently (cable modem good - works w/ laptop)

**One important fact: When the system is powered down for an hour or longer it retries 4 - 5 times on the power-up boot until finally completing it. Then, it may crash into BSODEath a couple minutes later and go into boot sequence again.

Troubleshooting:
1) Did full recovery and reformat using system disks – no change.
2) Disconnected bottom SATA drive and did another full recovery on top located SATA.
No change.
3)Swapped out top SATA for bottom drive and did full recovery and reformat.
No change.
4) Installed bottom SATA back in bottom location and disconnected top SATA drive.
Did another full recovery and reformat. No Change.

Even on “restarts” the system may halt during the boot and mention that a file is missing (which is not consistently the same file), I then hit <enter> and it continues to boot, but does it slowly and takes a while to complete.

Any advise is appreciated. At this point it appears as if its not a disk problem.

Thanks,
Ethics05

ethics05 · 02-13-2009, 07:01 PM

Partial Solution: CMOS battery weak. Corrected many things.

Only thing I see that remains is that Disk identified as Presario_RP (D) is coming up as having a total capacity of 5.14GB and its an 80GB like Drive C.

I'm assuming since its confirmed in Computer Mgr and Winmsd and Device Mgr regarding lacking capacity that the disk is defective.

When trying to rebuild the array it also says its not the same capacity.

Sound correct?

Ethics05

**raptor_pa** · 02-13-2009, 08:14 PM

Two things to try, run the manufacturers diagnostic util against the quetionable drive. Usually a drive that fails and shows issues with capacity are 0 or some totally unrealistic value. If the diags all pass then you could have picked up an HPA on the drive- try this util- http://hddguru.com/content/en/softwa...-Restore-Tool/ or MHDD from the files list on the same site. See if something along the way has cut the drive. If no HPA is found, ( actually even if it is and you remove it ) the zero wipe the disk with killdisk or d-ban - repartition and reformat. It could be a dead drive, but not enough information yet to say it is....

ethics05 · 02-16-2009, 08:18 AM

Raptor_pa,

Attempting to use HDD Capacity Restore Tool: As soon as program starts it asks to select a drive. Here's what it lists:

Intel 828 01EB Ultra ATA Storage........
Channel 0, master unknown device
0, slave unknown device
1, master unknown device
1, slave unknown device

Intel 828 01EB Ultra ATA Storage........
same as above except master 1 and slave 1 are CDRoms that are in the
system.

Any ideas what is going on?

Thanks,
Ethics05

02-12-2009, 08:51 AM	#1 (permalink)
ethics05 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 3 OS: XP Home	SATA drives w/ RAID - drive problem or ? Compaq Presario 8000T P8656T w/ (2)80GB SATA drives w/ RAID 1. Drives are connected via separate cabling – Port 1 and Port2 on module. System disk contains drivers for RAID. Windows XP Home. System is 5 yrs old problem free until now. Thought I may have a defective drive, but not sure. Symptoms: Occasional blue screen of death on power-up boot. A USB External hard drive (for back-ups) is sometimes “not seen” in My Computer and sometimes a bell rings as the ext drive blinks and “is found”/ “not found” like and blinking on/off. Tried other USB Ports and does same thing. Works perfectly connected to my laptop. Sometimes hangs when transferring files from ext to drive c. Both Firefox and IExplorer log off unexpectedly intermittently (cable modem good - works w/ laptop) *One important fact: When the system is powered down for an hour or longer it retries 4 - 5 times on the power-up boot until finally completing it. Then, it may crash into BSODEath a couple minutes later and go into boot sequence again. Troubleshooting: 1) Did full recovery and reformat using system disks – no change. 2) Disconnected bottom SATA drive and did another full recovery on top located SATA. No change. 3)Swapped out top SATA for bottom drive and did full recovery and reformat. No change. 4) Installed bottom SATA back in bottom location and disconnected top SATA drive. Did another full recovery and reformat. No Change. Even on “restarts” the system may halt during the boot and mention that a file is missing (which is not consistently the same file), I then hit <enter> and it continues to boot, but does it slowly and takes a while to complete. Any advise is appreciated. At this point it appears as if its not a disk problem. Thanks, Ethics05 Last edited by ethics05; 02-12-2009 at 09:10 AM. Reason: forgot important symptom*

02-13-2009, 07:01 PM	#2 (permalink)
ethics05 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 3 OS: XP Home	Re: SATA drives w/ RAID - drive problem or ? Partial Solution: CMOS battery weak. Corrected many things. Only thing I see that remains is that Disk identified as Presario_RP (D) is coming up as having a total capacity of 5.14GB and its an 80GB like Drive C. I'm assuming since its confirmed in Computer Mgr and Winmsd and Device Mgr regarding lacking capacity that the disk is defective. When trying to rebuild the array it also says its not the same capacity. Sound correct? Ethics05

02-13-2009, 08:14 PM	#3 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 4,872 OS: XP	Re: SATA drives w/ RAID - drive problem or ? Two things to try, run the manufacturers diagnostic util against the quetionable drive. Usually a drive that fails and shows issues with capacity are 0 or some totally unrealistic value. If the diags all pass then you could have picked up an HPA on the drive- try this util- http://hddguru.com/content/en/softwa...-Restore-Tool/ or MHDD from the files list on the same site. See if something along the way has cut the drive. If no HPA is found, ( actually even if it is and you remove it ) the zero wipe the disk with killdisk or d-ban - repartition and reformat. It could be a dead drive, but not enough information yet to say it is.... __________________

02-16-2009, 08:18 AM	#4 (permalink)
ethics05 Registered User Join Date: Feb 2009 Posts: 3 OS: XP Home	Re: SATA drives w/ RAID - drive problem or ? Raptor_pa, Attempting to use HDD Capacity Restore Tool: As soon as program starts it asks to select a drive. Here's what it lists: Intel 828 01EB Ultra ATA Storage........ Channel 0, master unknown device 0, slave unknown device 1, master unknown device 1, slave unknown device Intel 828 01EB Ultra ATA Storage........ same as above except master 1 and slave 1 are CDRoms that are in the system. Any ideas what is going on? Thanks, Ethics05