Hard drive replacement advice needed

whybelieve

Hi,

We have a computer that has 2, 150GB WD Hard drives in configured in some form of RAID so that the computer just thinks there is one 300GB (it's how it came when we bought it)

It has begun crashing regularly and says "A drive in a RAID 0 volume is failing try and backup immediately"
We have backed up but I'm not sure what to do next?

I would like to wipe it all and start again - would that fix the problem or am I best to buy a new hard drive?

If I buy a new one can / should I remove both with just one new one - will the computer cope with this?

thanks - any advice appreciated

AJ84

Are you able to run a test on it?
I have the same drives as you but in a RAID1 configuration

WD have many tools you can do a scan on and check its SMART status. If it is dying, I would replace it straight away.

I'm not familiar with Raid 0 but from memory, its 150+150 = 300GB as one drive (in appearance)

This means that the data is spanned over both drives unlike RAID 1 which is mirrored so file 1 will exist on both drive 1 and drive 2.

What this in essence means is that if you pull out and replace the failing drive, you lose whatever data is on that specific drive.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

So in order of questions... yes buy a new one.
If you want the continue the raid configuraiton, you will need to ensure you buy the same drive as you should have the same drive as the working one to keep in that environment.

You could break the raid and treat them as seperate drives which is also an option.

whybelieve

I'm glad I've found someone that knows what they are talking about...

- how do i do a test and what test do i do?

- It sounds like the best thing to do is to either throw them both away and just put 1 new on it (is breaking the raid difficult?) or have 2 not Raid-ed discs in.

AJ84

I think this should answer your checking query:
support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=601&sid=3&lang=en

I'm sure there is a bootable version available which is what I used to use back in the day - you basically download the ISO file and burn it to CD
Boot your PC from CD and you get into the WD tools software (there are clear instructions within the site/software to help you do this too)

You can then do a sector by sector scan etc.
If they have updated their software, it will do a quick scan and tell you the status of your drive too.

Also depending on how old the drive is, your drive may still be under warranty - I know their drives now have a 5 year warranty on them so it's worth checking the manufacturer date out (this again should be found on the software)

Raid is nice but I have never really found sense in Raid 0 unless you really needed the combined space - now days, you can get a 300GB drive as a single drive for next to nothing so maybe this is the route to go and keep your working 150's as a spare/backup/failover drive.

Breaking the raid is easy enough but it does depend on how it is done in the first place. All the PC's I have worked with have a RAID BIOS which you access - I think mine is shift + F5 just before windows starts. You then assign it there.
I know of some software RAID setups too which is done via windows itself. Do you know how yours is done or could you find out what motherboard you have?

Sorry for writing lectures

whybelieve

Thanks again.

I downloaded the software and managed to get the computer to be in a working / not yet crashed mode and ran the software.

This is what it said...
Test Option: QUICK TEST
Model Number: <loads of unreadable black blobs and symbols>
Unit Serial Number: <loads of unreadable black blobs and symbols>
Firmware Number: <loads of unreadable black blobs and symbols>
Capacity: 8.79 GB
SMART Status: Not Available
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 10:14:28, October 12, 2009

Test Option: EXTENDED TEST
Model Number: <loads of unreadable black blobs and symbols>Unit Serial Number: <loads of unreadable black blobs and symbols>
Firmware Number: <loads of unreadable black blobs and symbols>Capacity: 8.79 GB
SMART Status: Not Available
Test Result: PASS
Test Time: 10:16:39, October 12, 2009


So sadly not much use!!

I think I will...

Buy Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATAII 16MB Cache 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM from Amazon for £47

and scrap one of the hard drives and try and keep the other one in (or do you think I would be best to scrap both?)

Do you know how to find out which one is the faulty one?

Thanks again

JasX

First step pull off ALL data you don't want to to lose and save it somewhere else.

My recollection of RAID 0 arrays is that the drives are 'striped' so most files exist partly on both drives simultaneously. The design is based on faster access to data as instead of reading your file from a single drive it reads/writes half from each drive making access faster, the down side is if either drive fails you lose the lot!

If you don't need superfast data access the striping and extra risk to your data is almost certainly not worthwhile so ditching the RAID and getting a nice big drive will be the way forward.

Suggested steps:
1-secure your data!
2-check you have all the CDs/drivers to rebuild your PC from scratch
3-look at new drive options and weather you want to keep either of your current hard disks
4-reformat and rebuild your PC on the updated Hard drive config

Edit: various corrections to my awful spelling

JasX

double post

*deleted

JasX

cross post -added some more notes in blue

whybelieve wrote: »

I think I will...

Buy Western Digital Caviar Blue 640GB SATAII 16MB Cache 3.5 inch Internal Hard Drive OEM from Amazon for £47

Looks a fair value up-to-date drive -worth conforming if your current Motherboard supports SATA2 (I recall some SATA2 drives have a jumper switch to limit them to SATA1 speeds but worth checking before ordering to avoid hassle)

and scrap one of the hard drives and try and keep the other one in (or do you think I would be best to scrap both?)

might be worth keeping it as a second non-RAID drive incase you ever want to do anything that needs rapid data access and is best spread accross 2 drives (eg some people video PC games and it helps running the game from one drive but recording the video to a separate one, alternatively if you're burning/ripping a DVD whilst working on something else it'll probably perform better if you're doing that on a separate drive)

Do you know how to find out which one is the faulty one?

yes, AFTER you've backed up your data and are taking apart your PC if you unplug each drive in turn and re-run the diagnostics program it should tell you which one is good -almost certainly will separate your RAID array and doing this will pose very high risk of not being able to acccess your data again. -basically do right before you're ready to reformat & rebuild your PC on the new drive.

.........................................................................................................................

AJ84

SATA2 shouldnt be an issue but just double check the brands... I think it's the Green ones you want to stay away from as its only a 5400rpm drive - Blue should be ok

Agreed on the backing up now though...

That WD tool should be able to do a proper test too by checking (reading/writing) sector by sector so I guess that should tell you.
I think part of WD warranty is that you do this test to ensure it is faulty or not

If the others work, do keep them as a secondary drive - no point binning them
You could just keep your mess/temp/downloads etc on there

basmic

If the drives are in RAID right now, you'll probably find you'll need to disable RAID from within the BIOS before the WD tool will pick up each drive, and test them individually.

Regarding what drive to get - I have used Hitachi for many years, even before they were known as IBM.

I bought a Hitachi 1TB drive (link) a couple of weeks ago, and I'm very happy with it!

whybelieve

Thanks again!

How do I check that is is SATA2 compatible?

It is a dell D07916 DIMENSION 9100
DIM 9100 630 (3.0GHZ)

??