Dual Harddrive failure

[Ukle]

1 Hard Drive set - Raid 0 array made up of 2 80 Gb Maxtors - On Via controller

2nd Hard Drive set - 1x 74Gb Raptor - On Promise Controller

Both have started to fail at the same time. The raid 0 is now dead as a dodo, while the raptor is working just keeps going and putting errors on the drive. Had no major problems with them until this morning, then the machine failed to boot up. After much attepts and finally getting xp to load on the raptor then the raid finally broke

The raptor has appeared to stabalise since the raid has died but its just so odd how both suddenly start to die at the same time.

My question is -

Is this just really seriously bad luck or is it the motherboard dying?

My only problem i have with the machine is with the harddrives. No other problems with the machine at all.

Really at a loose end as dont want to replace a full working hardrive to find out its the motherboard gone. Also dont want to fork out 100 quid on a motherboard if there is sod all wrong with this one

The motherboard is a MSI K8T Neo.

 

[smurkin]

Really at a loose end as dont want to replace a full working hardrive to find out its the motherboard gone. Also dont want to fork out 100 quid on a motherboard if there is sod all wrong with this one

The motherboard is a MSI K8T Neo.

Sadly, with RAID, your stuffed. The only way to recover your data, if it is the mobo faulty, is to try to install the RAID onto a mobo using the same RAID controller - even then, I seriously doubt it would work.

Still, I've had arrays die...its usually only caused by one faulty disk .. so the other disk is fine PLUS...the faulty disk (unless its seriously broken) usually works once you have taken it off the array

edit...there should be some clues...like the RAID controller giving a broken stripe error, or the startup hanging while detecting IDE devices....

I suppose it might be worth resetting your bios using jumpers on the mobo, as a first port of call. Might also be worth trying an alternative psu if you have one.

 

[Ukle]

Not caring about the raid can guarantee one of the disks has failed... although not checked it as it used to report faults then stoped reporting, and has been fine until today. And I dont put any senstive data on the raid anyway after all its a raid 0

Its more worrying that 2 sets of disks on different controllers fail / start to get errors at the same time. This makes me think its the motherboard which has the controllers in built into it is going but nothing else appears wrong with the motherboard :/

 

[Xavier]

It's quite unlikely to be the motherboard if the drives are on different controlllers. I'd be more inclined to look at your PSU, if the drives are all fubar, that's the probable culprit.

Can you tell us which PSU it is? is it branded? What capacity?

 

[Ukle]

PSU is an Enermax 465W

 

[Xavier]

how old is it? it really sounds more like a PSU problem than mobo...

 

[Ukle]

PSU was only a year old... but replaced it with one of the Hiper Type R's and now appears to be working fine as the Raptor has reported no faults since, although only used it for a few hours given its Christmas and all. Thanks for the advice.