Re: Consistant failure of RAID 1 volume despite replacing HDs?

webadmin@intel.com — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 17:47:03 GMT

I did manage to get this phenomenon to stop occurring. Only after I had given up on half the information on the drives, though. I had to just allow the RAID to be deleted, then remake it. Not technically difficult but a solution that RAID is designed to avoid.

Consistant failure of RAID 1 volume despite replacing HDs?

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:56:53 GMT

I'm at the end of my rope with my intel RAID and it looks as though years of data is probably lost already. I'm hoping to find a solution to this problem though to start replacing my lost data. Any help would be much appreciated.

About 3 months back I installed Windows 7 x64 on my home server (system details at end of post). I have been using Intel's raid for a year or so on Vista so I simply migrated the volumes to my new OS install. I have a RAID 1 mirror of 964 GB Samsung drives and a RAID 1 mirrof of 1.5 TB Seagate drives. The driver I used was intel MSM 8.9. After a few weeks my computer started rebooting itself randomly. After checking my event logs I tracked it down to as Kernel_Power Failure likely caused iaStor.sys. In a single day it crashed my server 5 times and caused my 1.5 TB volume to fail. This is when the failure starts and has never been resolved. I attempted rebuilding, but after about 10% in every time the same drive would fail or go missing and cause the status to degrade once more. I searched all over these boards for some kind of RAID problem (of the myriad results) that looked like my own. In the process I upgraded my BIOS and upgraded to intel RST 9.6 after reading some success with that.

After upgrading to intel RST 9.6 my Kernel_Power events dissappeared and my system became stable. But my 1.5 TB volume was STILL degraded, and the drive would continue to fail each repair about 10% in. The next logical step was an HD RMA. I did an advanced RMA with Seagate and got another 1.5 TB drive in the mail. After replacing my failing drive with the new HD and attempting to rebuild the volume to the new drive it failed again at 10% but this time faulted the drive that was always showing healthy before. It was at this point I started getting nervous. This time I replaced the newly faulting driver with a new SATA cable and changed the port. Again I marked it normal and attempted a rebuild. This time the brand new HD was faulted as missing and degrading the array.

At this point it would seem the HDs were not the problem. But what is? The very same setup had been completely stable on Vista. The only change was Windows 7 x64 and the replacing of older HDs with the new 1.5TB Seagates. It would appear intel RAID is simply unable to keep these two volumes working regardless of the HDs involved. Any help with this issue would be appreciated - even just some more steps to try to pinpoint the issue. I'll list pertinate system information below:

OS: Windows 7 x64 Enterprise

Mobo: DFI Infinity P965-S (SB ICH8/R)

BIOS: Pheonix 09/01/2008

1st Volume: RAID1 w/ 965GB Samsung HD103UJ (Ports 0 & 1)

2nd Failing Volume: RAID1 w/ 1.5TB Seagate ST31500341AS (Ports 3 & 5)

3rd HD for OS: WD WD500DAAKS-D0YGA0 (Port 2)

RAID Driver: Intel RST 9.6.0.1014 (Port 4)

I can provide any further info if requested. Again, any kind of help or direction would be appreciated. Thanks.

- SeanG

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Re: Consistant failure of RAID 1 volume despite replacing HDs?

Consistant failure of RAID 1 volume despite replacing HDs?