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December 31st, 2007 19:00
E521 Raid Failure, Recovery
Weird failure today. An E521/Raid 1/3800 wouldn't boot. It hung right after mup.sys load time (disk enum).
It wouldn't boot into safe mode (!!). Threw a 7B bluescreen.
It wouldn't boot to the XPSP2 CD (!!!). Just stopped.
Ctrl-n showed a "healthy" RAID array, as far as NVIDIA was concerned.
Dell diags read the entire disk, but threw a SMART read error (0F00:065D short, :075D long). I don't trust SMART readings on a mirrored setup, but the thing didn't boot, soo....
Disabled one drive, then the other in BIOS. No boot; no change. Disabled RAID in BIOS. No boot; no change. Did the same SATA 0/1 dance with no joy. BTW, there were no diagnostic error messages whatsoever offered during any of these failed boots! So much for RAID on nvidia.
Took a wild guess and disconnected SATA 1's data cable. With 0 and 1 both enabled, but RAID disabled, the machine booted fine.
I've had trouble before with XP MCE builds from late 2006. I'm reluctant to flash the machine, considering the problems last year. It currently has 03.
What's my best course - just throw an unformatted any-old 7200 rpm 160 into SATA 1 and let the ctrl-n util rebuild? Anyone tried this? Does it work? I couldn't break the RAID before pulling the drive, obviously. What are my chances?
Cross some fingers for me. Hints?
It wouldn't boot into safe mode (!!). Threw a 7B bluescreen.
It wouldn't boot to the XPSP2 CD (!!!). Just stopped.
Ctrl-n showed a "healthy" RAID array, as far as NVIDIA was concerned.
Dell diags read the entire disk, but threw a SMART read error (0F00:065D short, :075D long). I don't trust SMART readings on a mirrored setup, but the thing didn't boot, soo....
Disabled one drive, then the other in BIOS. No boot; no change. Disabled RAID in BIOS. No boot; no change. Did the same SATA 0/1 dance with no joy. BTW, there were no diagnostic error messages whatsoever offered during any of these failed boots! So much for RAID on nvidia.
Took a wild guess and disconnected SATA 1's data cable. With 0 and 1 both enabled, but RAID disabled, the machine booted fine.
I've had trouble before with XP MCE builds from late 2006. I'm reluctant to flash the machine, considering the problems last year. It currently has 03.
What's my best course - just throw an unformatted any-old 7200 rpm 160 into SATA 1 and let the ctrl-n util rebuild? Anyone tried this? Does it work? I couldn't break the RAID before pulling the drive, obviously. What are my chances?
Cross some fingers for me. Hints?
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FHaber
81 Posts
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January 2nd, 2008 19:00
FHaber
81 Posts
0
January 7th, 2008 17:00
FHaber
81 Posts
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January 16th, 2008 17:00
Dennis Smith
946 Posts
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January 16th, 2008 17:00
FHaber
81 Posts
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January 24th, 2008 17:00
Finally got the nerve up to update BIOS and the nVidia stuff. Inserted Seagate 160. The RAID 1 rebuilt in under three hours. Whew.