Author Topic: raid 0 - lots of fun (Read 7453 times)

nudone · « **on:** September 05, 2006, 01:19 AM »

woke up this morning, turned computer on and up came a message:

"you are an idiot, you are using raid 0, something is about to fail, back up your data now."

(at least, that's the way i remember the message.)

great. this pc isn't even 12 months old and it's started acting stupid. oh well, time to start backing things up - start again and realise i forgot to back something up.

nudone · « **Reply #1 on:** September 05, 2006, 02:08 AM »

ha, ha, it's worse than i thought. just read the message again and it might be nothing to do with my raid 0 drives - it might be one of my drives that i use to store all my important files - i don't have room to transfer all these files elsewhere.

f0dder · « **Reply #2 on:** September 05, 2006, 02:17 AM »

Crikey :/

If it's failing hard, rush off to get some replacement drive... and either power off and don't turn on till you got it, or keep it running but with no disk activity on the failing drive :/

mouser · « **Reply #3 on:** September 05, 2006, 02:29 AM »

go buy yourself an external usb hard drive NOW and use it to back up stuff asap.

And for god sake: rescue all furry birds whose names start with C first.

nudone · « **Reply #4 on:** September 05, 2006, 02:30 AM »

i've managed to find a couple of old drives, so i've got about 180 gig of free space - should be enough for me to back the most important stuff - i hope.

what annoys me most of all is that the drive that is on it's way out can only be less than 9 months old. also, i've got fans inside the machine to cool them down a bit, so i really don't see why they should be playing up.

any recommendations on how to work out which drive it is - when i booted up it said channel 5 master is dodgy - there are four drives in the machine and i haven't a clue which is on channel 5. i mean without physically disconnecting the drives - i'd like to just see which is which whilst i'm using windows.

nudone · « **Reply #5 on:** September 05, 2006, 02:50 AM »

it appears to be one of my 'storage' drives where i keep everything. i've got two identical samsung 250 gig drives - one of which claims to be at 87 degrees C - which the drive monitoring utils i've tried doesn't like the look of.

the problem is now i don't know which samsung drive it is - i've got the serial number for the bad drive but i can't work out which drive that actually is.

help please!

nudone · « **Reply #6 on:** September 05, 2006, 03:00 AM »

i think i've identified the disk. duh, should have just looked in computer management > storage > disk management.

so, now i'm even more annoyed - the bad disk is the newest one i've got - probably less than 6 months old. absolutely pathetic.

nudone · « **Reply #7 on:** September 05, 2006, 03:09 AM »

can anyone explain why this drive would be reading 87 degrees when an identical samsung drive is less than 2 inches away and only reads at 25 degrees. the bad drive isn't even used a great deal and there is a 120mm fan stuck right in front of both of these drives - which probably means why the good drive is only at 25 degrees C.

could the temperature reading be wrong? it really doesn't make much sense to me.

f0dder · « **Reply #8 on:** September 05, 2006, 03:14 AM »

Try touching the drive - that'll tell you for sure. Temperature sensor is probably screwy, or perhaps the software. 85C is pretty insane for a drive, IMHO.

nudone · « **Reply #9 on:** September 05, 2006, 03:24 AM »

i've had 3 different prog say the temparature was around 87 so i can't really blame the software. both samsung drives feel pretty cool to me - they aren't even warm.

so, the questions is now, do i chuck this 'bad' drive or continue to use it - is there anyway of getting it to stop reporting that it's too hot?

or should i just accept there is obviously something wrong with it and let my lump hammer look after it?

f0dder · « **Reply #10 on:** September 05, 2006, 03:29 AM »

Try moving the drive to another system and see if the temp readings are unsane there too. If so, backup data and check if there's some new firmware out for the drive :-s

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #11 on:** September 05, 2006, 04:23 AM »

If you are getting errors like that back it up and RMA it to Samsung !!

Oh and get a screen shot of the reasons you are doing the RMA so that when they receive it back they won't say 'There's nothing wrong with it'

A further thought - how tightly packed are your drives in the box? Try removing it from the drive bay and pacle it on the bottom of the case (make sure there are no metal bits that could short circuit anything. Leave the side off the box and run it again for a while and recech the temperature. It could be simply an airflow problem.

nudone · « **Reply #12 on:** September 05, 2006, 04:32 AM »

just found another 200 gig drive so it looks like i will be planning my backup strategy for when this happens again.

i'll try putting the 'bad' drive elsewhere but i can't see how ventilation can be a problem - there's an inch or two of clear space above and below the drive and, like i said before, there is a 120mm fan right in front of the drive sucking air in directly from the front of the case - the drive has been working perfectly up until this morning so it makes no sense to me.

regarding the RMA, are they likely to replace the drive - or will i have to spend a lot of time trying to convince them - i'd rather just sling the faulty drive and forget about it if i'm going to have to keep chasing things up.

Ooops sorry ...

I accidentally hit Modify instead of Quote !!! I have restored you original message. Carol

mouser · « **Reply #13 on:** September 05, 2006, 04:39 AM »

...
regarding the RMA, are they likely to replace the drive - or will i have to spend a lot of time trying to convince them - i'd rather just sling the faulty drive and forget about it if i'm going to have to keep chasing things up.
-nudone (September 05, 2006, 04:32 AM)

you'll probably know within 5 minutes on the phone with them. either they'll just tell you to send it in for a replacement and they won't even look at it, or they'll give you a hard time and never let up.

f0dder · « **Reply #14 on:** September 05, 2006, 04:39 AM »

When you RMA a drive, anything can happen...

1) you could get the same disk back ("nothing is wrong with it"), and risk having to pay some tech fee. Never happened to me.
2) you could get a "refurbished" drive, happened to me twice with IBM (fsckers).
3) you could get a brand new drive (happened with the single maxtor disk I've RMA'ed).

If the drive temperature is off in the second box as well, and there's no firmware update or something, and you're going to replace the drive anyway, go for the RMA. A little trick that makes sure you'll get a new drive is to hook it to a PSU you don't care much about, then short-circuit the drive with a screwdriver until it stops working completely.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #15 on:** September 05, 2006, 05:41 AM »

regarding the RMA, are they likely to replace the drive - or will i have to spend a lot of time trying to convince them - i'd rather just sling the faulty drive and forget about it if i'm going to have to keep chasing things up.

My experiences with RMAs (via both Maxtor and Seagate) were positive. Both sent a new drive within 48 hours. For that service they asked for credit card details (which were not charged) in case you didn't return the faulty one within the prescribed time frame. It did mean they were sensitive to the need of copying data to the new drive before returning the faulty one.

If you say your drive was completely dead (as suggested by killing it before you return it) there will be no incentive for them to do offer this replacement before you return the item.

Just make sure you use a trackable return service for the drive in case it never arrives!

mouser · « **Reply #16 on:** September 05, 2006, 10:18 AM »

A little trick that makes sure you'll get a new drive is to hook it to a PSU you don't care much about, then short-circuit the drive with a screwdriver until it stops working completely.

back in the old days we had a vcr that was broken and would flip out at random and display nonsense on the screen. it was under one of those extended warranties from the retail store we bought it on. the only problem is that it was so intermitant that the problem would never show up when we brought it in for them to repair it. after the 3rd trip in where they kept it for a week and returned it saying there is no problem, we reluctantly had to apply the short-out method to help that little vcr meet it's vcr friends in vcr heaven, and finally got a replacement. i'm not proud of that moment but sometimes i wonder if it's the only solution for such cases..

nudone · « **Reply #17 on:** September 05, 2006, 10:46 AM »

samsung use a company that sorts the RMA out online - just waiting for them to email me my username and password so i can actually log into there site an fill in the forms.

i ran a samsung util that checked the drive out and it is definitely a dud, well, it's working still but the s.m.a.r.t thingy says it's on its way out.

one good from all this, of course, is that i will have to sort out my hard drives and data backup routine. i've definitely left it way too long.

f0dder · « **Reply #18 on:** September 05, 2006, 04:55 PM »

i'm not proud of that moment but sometimes i wonder if it's the only solution for such cases..
-mouser

Better than getting ripped off by the company... and them refurbishing your drive and giving it to some other person >_<

nudone · « **Reply #19 on:** September 20, 2006, 06:08 AM »

*UPDATE*

i posted the faulty samsung drive off two days ago, Monday afternoon, and have now just received a new drive posted back to me.

so that took less than 48 hours to get the new drive, which is pretty good in my book.

all i had to do was log into a UK website that deals with these things and get an RMA number, box the drive up, put the RMA number on the box and then post it off. i did have to pay postage for sending the drive but with such a quick turn around i'm not concerned.

so, i can recommend sumsung drives again - i'm very pleased with the service.

Carol Haynes · « **Reply #20 on:** September 20, 2006, 08:16 AM »

Well done Samsung ! A good result.