***HELP!!*** RAID 0 Drive Failure

[AlienGG]

Every time after system idles for 10+ minutes, the system freezes and the hard drive activity indicator is constantly lit. The computer had to be shutdown by pressing the power button. This started about 5 days ago. Last night, it froze for one last time and I shut it down and did not bother to restart it. When I turned it on this morning, the system prompted that Operating System was not found. After restart, the RAID controller prompted error.

Possible cause can be frequent data access from downloads.

The RAID controller is Promise 378 Fastrak.

Drive configuration was RAID 0 striping with 128K block.

I deleted the RAID 0 array (array deletion only) and tried to rebuild it, but the control panel could only find one drive.

No other remedies attempted.

I was thinking to back up data very soon, but... SIGH!!!~~~~

My Outlook PST file is in it without backup!! Experts please share your 2 cents...

 

[Theo]

There is no data redundancy with RAID 0. If one drive fails, the data is lost. Next time use RAID 1 for important data.

 

[Focus]

Dumpster nearby?

 

[cursal]

If you still have the one drive with the info on it I would strongly suggest to backup that drive before trying to use it.

I suggest a Maxtor OneTouch III external Drive 300 GB
Just got 2 of those running on RAID 1 and the Firewire 400 makes it very fast. You can work right off the drive all day long from photoshop to video editing.

Well worth the $260 paid at Newegg.

 

[Theo]

But he has one failed drive; in RAID 0 / striped mode data is shared between two drives. You can't reconstruct the array if one drive fails. The benefit of RAID 0 is speed.

 

[AlienGG]

looks like gotta pay some data recovery dude to fix it...
They quoted me big buck! $$$$$
Got quoted for $4000+-, $2100~20K and $1500 ~ $3000.

Man, I can't lose those files! Especially my emails!

 

[Focus]

damn they are high grossing you bro..

 

[AlienGG]

Anyone used this?
http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

it doesn't work..... all depend on the raid controller..... and it doesn't take one of the drives....

 

[cursal]

But he has one failed drive; in RAID 0 / striped mode data is shared between two drives. You can't reconstruct the array if one drive fails. The benefit of RAID 0 is speed.

I stand corrected.
I wasn't thinking about the problem of striping.
I was caught up in security not speed.

Thanks for pointing that out.

 

[AlienGG]

Right now, I suspect that one of the chips beneath the hard drive rack burn out. I found some powder on the chip. I really hope that it was really because of the chip not any failure on the harddrive. I think its 3-year warranty still works.
Does anyone know of any RAID external enclosure for 2.5" hdd?

 

[AlienGG]

Fixed! Turning on and off for a few times and the array appeared on the list again! I don't know why cuz I did delete it.
I deleted it again and refined the array, and it became functional.

 

[cursal]

Good to hear that! I am happy for you. I have been through something similar.
The drive is probably a "self-error correcting" drive. It found the back sectors and labled them as corrupt and are no longer in use.

I hope you have reset your raid to a 1 and think about the backup vs. the speed of striping 0

SMART Hard drives are cool

 

[AlienGG]

I have to thank one of my friends who used to be a manager at Microsoft. I almost sent the drive out for data recovery, and she recommended me otherwise.
I think one of the files on C: is corrupted. I tried to build a backup image of C: last night, but it always froze at some point. It went through with all other partitions though. This happened a few times before.
It was my Outlook PST file got corrupted last time, and I had to lose 10% of my emails. I think I will try to get 2 big drives and make it RAID 1 instead of 0.

Thanks, buddy.

 

[Theo]

Get 2 x 500 Mb ones.

 

[AlienGG]

I can live with windows 3.2, but I tried to compress my outlook pst, but no matter how much pressure I put on, it just wouldn't go smaller than 10GB...

 

[Theo]

Delete some large attachments.

 

[AlienGG]

That's fine, but I have to keep the porn.

 

[RatherGood]

That's fine, but I have to keep the porn.

Drives are so cheap now 0+1 is the way to go. Depending on how many machines you have it might be worth it to build a storage server.

Worst part about RAID is you become less dilligent in backing up essential items.

 

[AlienGG]

It's a laptop, FYI.