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Raid Hard Disk problems
Hi, I have a new (Dec. 07) Inspiron 530 with a Raid 1 mirrored Vista Business setup with two Samsung 320Gb HD's. I keep getting one or other hard disk going down and the system tells me the Raid Array is degraded. Replace Hard Disk! In Intel Matrix Manager, right clicking on the degraded Disk allows me to set as normal upon which the array will rebuild itself. This is very frustrating. Anyone have any fixes or suggestions. Dell won't/don't tell me what the problem is, apart from one nice young lady who said "It's normal!" Huh! Spit! I don't really want to invalidate warranty. revjohnk
shesagordie
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Posted January 5th, 2008 19:00
revjohnk
You could also, try running Dell diagnostic's extended test, read, write, verify, on the hard drive, not the quickie express test.
How to run the Dell's Diagnostics Utility
Bev.
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Post the issue in the appropriate Board, where they will be answered.JanCostaMesa
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Posted January 9th, 2008 13:00
I am in an almost similiar situataion...although one of my drives is a Western Digitial. I will say my machine functioned for about 3 weeks without a disk failure...but, since then, it is almost a daily experience.I have spent over 15 hours on the phone with Dell...their support is less than helpful. Their first attempt was to replace the drive...then have me swap cables...then complete reinstall Vista...then install a new motherboard. I've spoken with over 12 different Dell techies, and at least 5 supervisors. Only one of them even knew that the drive could be 'reset to normal'. Of course, all that does is allow the drive to start mirroring all over again.I would be extremely interested in you make any headway in resolving your conflict...- Hi, I have done as mombodog advised and run the extended test from the partition. It took most of the day and came up with nothing - in other words everything passed. I have today changed the SATA cables from the Foxconn ones that came installed to a couple of Asus ones I had spare. We wait and see. I must say the disks have not degraded for three days now. So I hope :-) I do wonder if Dell properly runs in it's machines before releasing them. The Extended test will give the system a good run in, maybe that is what it needs. Keeping my fingers crossed. John K
JanCostaMesa
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Posted January 9th, 2008 23:00
Thanks for your update...I did not include it in my previous post, but I also ran the full, extended diagnostics...on both 500 G drives...they both passed with flying colors. (And, that was AFTER I had Dell replaced the supposedly bad drive.)Homer Gonzalez
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Posted February 4th, 2008 20:00
I have exactly the same problem you describe. I called India numerous times, but not much help there. They simply want to go into Intel Matrix and right click the failed drive and "mark as normal". It then rebuilds (interestingly, sometimes it will not let you mark as normal; you must reboot first). I ran the diagnostics from the partition multiple times. Nothing was found. It reports drive working fine. What worries me is the frequency of this event: it is increasing and now happens daily. It affects both raid drives. One day both drives failed and PC would not boot. I then booted from hard drive partition and ran diagnostics and same thing: both drives are fine. Then on fourth attempt, I was able to boot. Something smells here. My suspicion is this is a wide problem affecting many. Dell owes an answer on this one. Any input from forum would be appreciated.
Inspiron 530
Vista Ultimate
Raid 1 Samsung 320 x2
JanCostaMesa
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Posted February 14th, 2008 03:00
I lost everything this week. Through a LOOONG conversation, I found someone at Dell (Victor, thank you) who not only was able to walk me through recovery...but also pointed out a BIOS patch from late December, 2007 that is supposed to address this issue! I've just applied it--hope it works.JanCostaMesa
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Posted February 15th, 2008 14:00
OK...so much for the BIOS flash upgrade...that lasted less than 36 hours before the RAID1 degraded....
mombodog
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Posted January 5th, 2008 13:00