XPS 420 SATA RAID and drive failing

I have been having the same issue since I got my XPS420 about a month ago, my mate ordered a couple at the same time and he has already had 1 replaced due to this issue.

Ive been doing some digging on the web and there appear to be a few causes and solutions for this:-

Apple quicktime install or Itunes install fails or performs poorly, this was my downfall and my mates, basically there is some sort of issue with Apples software and one of the Intel Matrix drivers, its causes lots of read error which eventually flag the drive as errored. You can mark the drive as normal via the Matrix software but for me my machine would hang after 5 minutes of use and I would be lucky if I could boot back into Vista, it hung just after the Raid bios message. To get around this you can enable writeback cache on the array via the Matrix software but this is a risky and can cause possible data loss scenarios. It worked for me for a while but Im getting the same error occurred error now afte running Bishock for a couple of hours, the game freezes and I get a solid hard drive light, no option but to hard reset, both times this has happend I've had a drive marked error occured and had issues getting into Vista again, multiple reboots, going into safe mode or letting a repair process go through.

Another possible cause I found  was that there is an issue with Vista installtions CD, all of them , something about the install of an incorrect driver for hibernation ( or the like ), it should only install onto laptop setups but installs onto desktops, this is a known microsoft issue thaat Dell are  aware of and apparently should be resolved with SP1.

Another possible solution that the post above mentions is to change the SATA ports that the drives connect to from 1 & 2 to others, you have to enable them in the BIOS I belive and then disable the old 1 & 2 ports, I cannot remember the precise procedure but I can post it when I get home.

There was some other fix that involved some reg changes invovling the intel matrix drivers.

Currrenlty I have uninstalled quicktime and disabled writeback cache but I suspect that this wont fix the issue.

Overall there is an underlying issue somwhere with no clear soultion other than to break the RAID and go back to a traditional drive setup, something I didn't pay money for!

Sorry I didn't see this thread.

 

I've had the same issues with my xps420. 4 weeks after purchase 1 of the HDD is reported as failed in the raid 1. Anyway, Dell have responded extremely quick in my case, called tech support Sunday asked to do a test which took 10 hours reported back Monday. Tuesday an engineer came and swapped out both HDD and reinstalled all the shipped software.  

 

Some points.

The 'Intel Matrix Control Panel' kept freezing when I tried to open it after the HDD failure

The HDD were Samsung and are now Western Digital (according to the engineer that installed them).

I'm in the UK and my system came from Ireland mid Jan 08

 

I will keep you posted

Here is a URL detailing the quicktime issue:-

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=6109829�

This one has some details on how to change you SATA connections:-

http://forums.microsoft.com/technet/showpost.aspx?postid=1358943&siteid=17&PageID=1

Another thread with relevant info:-

http://www.flyingnerd.com/intel-raid-problem-under-windows-vista/

The whole thing is very weird.  When it happened a couple of days ago I checked the event log.

I switched my computer on at 7:54pm and left it to start up while I then went to get my daughter ready for bed.

I then logged in at 8:18pm and lo and behold one of the drives was now coming up as 'failed'. 

Looking in the vista event viewer application log I was able to see exactly when it had happened as IAANTmon reported the drive status changing from Normal to Failed at 8:03pm!

So before I had even logged in and done anything one of the drives had 'failed'.

I tested 2days ago, the update of "Intel(R) Chipset Software Installation Utility (INF Utility)" that you can find for DELL here : http://support.euro.dell.com/support/downloads/download.aspx?c=fr&l=fr&s=gen&releaseid=R174616&SystemID=DIM_PNT_9200_XPS_420&servicetag=&os=WLH&osl=fr&deviceid=3268&devlib=0&typecnt=0&vercnt=2&catid=-1&impid=-1&formatcnt=1&libid=27&fileid=237245

It seems to work fine for me under Win XP Pro.

I guess that the Intel matrix storage works as a couple with the chipset software, and updating one, need to update the other.

Waiting for your experience return.

Didier.

I updated the chipset software shortly after recieving the PC so its not a fix for me and Vista although it may have fixed your XP setup.

Hi shootyz,

 

Have you seen that for vista : http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=816&lang=eng

 

The last chipset software from intel was released 6 month after the chipset soft. porposed by dell.

Have you tested the last one ?

Latest update on the Dell XPS 420 Raid0/1 problems and Samsung drives failing.

Just got of the phone with XPS support 22.02.08 and it seems that the problem is due to a disc synch failure caused by a  delay in the Raid software. Samsung is working on the problem and it should be released a new driver for the disks during feb. latest mid March.

fingers crossed

What happens is Dell has swapped your Samsung drives for Seagate drives?

Since re-installing as a RAID 1 setup on Seagate drives, I had 2 failures in the first 2 days, but since then it's been OK. But I still don't know if this will now continue to work reliably as the original Samsung drives behaved in the same unpredictable way.

I'm having the exact same problem....... in in the UK have the XPS 420 running 2 x 500GB Samsung drives.

 

Only had the XPS for about 6 - 8 weeks, tech guy on phone just got me to carry out a diag test, after speaking on the phone for 1 hour ...... this is ridiculous, the amount of people having this problem and still no definitive answer??

Got two new Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 drives shipped out from Dell to replace the Samsungs. Re-installed everything from scratch - being particularly aware of the optimal BIOS/chipset/driver install sequence. Been stable for almost a week now. Took the chance of going with RAID0 again... (both my previous 0 and 1 installations has failed) 

We are still investigating this. Please be patient.

Surely these issues would have shown up in soak testing before the machines went out? It happens with annoying regularity so it shouldn't have been too hard to pick up!

 

If Dell can't locate the cause of the problem, would they be willing to cover the cost of a replacement RAID controller?