G50V-A2 RAID 0 Problem

First post here, I've found this forum to be a very useful resource, so I figured I'd ask...

I am running a G50V-A2 with two fresh Seagate 320GB 7200.3 drives in RAID 0, with no problems, except for this:

Sometimes when I reboot, or even from a cold boot, the Intel ICH ROM BIOS will not detect one of my two hard disks. And then it will say insert valid boot media etc... until I unplug the AC, remove the battery and power back on. It will sometimes take a few tries to get it to boot again.

I'm on the latest BIOS. Smells like a bug to me.

Anyone else getting this?

 

Also I've tried both settings for the hard disk drop protection (in the BIOS), which seems to prematurely try to park the heads on the disks, so I've disabled it but it hasn't solved the issue.

 

Sounds to random to be a bug, sounds like a intermittent hardware problem like one of the hdd's is not seated to the interface connector well enough.

I took my HDD's out and its a very snug fit so if you didnt get them in there just right...

But also others have had problems with the 2nd hdd being detected so I guess we cant rule out some kind of bios issue just yet.

If I were you I would take them out tho and put them back in very carefully first to eliminate that problem and inspect the connectors to make sure you did not damage a pin or something.

 

Thanks for your fast reply, I wasn't aware others had posted on this issue. My apologies, I cannot find the URL. My hard disks are indeed properly seated, that is the first thing I checked, as you are correct to point out. Will wait for a new BIOS I suppose. I also can't boot with my eSATA in. Cheers.

 

Seems like 3 power cycles reliably fixes the issue as well, without taking the battery out.

 

The other problem where a HDD was not detected was a bit different, the HDD was disabled and then the user could not reenable it until he turned on RAID.

This could be some kind of bug... How about swapping the two hard drives? If now the computer boots reliably off the same HDD which is seated in the other slot, then you can conclude that the problem is probably not with the HDD, but the connector/BIOS/ATA controller.

 

Hmm, since I'm RAID 0, that would be odd if it worked, it shouldn't make a difference which channel they're on, but I'll give it a shot for giggles.

I will try reinstalling onto the stock hard drives in RAID 0 to somewhat rule out the drives themselves. I wanted to see if anyone else is having this issue before digging that deep, but maybe it's necessary.

 

Oh sorry I skipped that paragraph where you said you were RAID0.

In that case you can't really identify whether one HDD is the trouble. Unless you set them in normal mode and install OS on just one of the HDDs. But yeah, wait for a less time-consuming solution first, maybe someone has a better idea.

 

I am starting to suspect this has nothing to do with my drives and everythin (just lost a keystroke.) to do with eSATA. If I have my eSATA plugged in while the computer turns on it will not ever boot. It shows up as a "non-raid" drive in the ICH option ROM screen, so it *should* boot because it is correctly configured and seen, but it doesn't. I have to power cycle 3 times to get it to boot again. Also I've noticed this pattern, when I forget to unplug my eSATA: First boot, it asks for boot media and ICH shows all 3 drives, two correctly configured in RAID, one (eSATA) non-raid. Second boot, with the eSATA unplugged now, it only shows disk 1, unhealthy array in ICH, so it will not boot. Third boot is the charm.

I will try and not forget to unplug my eSATA before booting and see if this happens again. If not it'll save me the headache of trying whack-a-mole on it.

 

Yeh, just a 'little detail' - eSATA connected drive...

 

My G1S booted fine with eSATA, is it known to be a problem on the G50V? I'm also not sure at this point whether it is the eSATA causing the issue, but I am becoming suspicious. It's only day two of my G50V ownership, so I've yet to really pin this down. Sorry!

 

Turns out the little detail might be the big fuss, I can't reproduce the issue without my eSATA plugged in with 5 reboots and two cold boots. No other G50V owners are having problems booting off RAID 0 with eSATA attached? I'd love to pinpoint this further, to either my enclosure or the G50V itself. Thanks!

 

To G50V itself...
Perhaps on G50V eSATA hooked up to IDE (second is DVD)

 

It's either my enclosure or a problem with the BIOS in the G50V, and as I said I'm running the latest. My eSATA enclosure is a Vantec NST-360SU with a Samsung HD103UJ 1TB hard disk. It shows up in the intel option rom screen at POST, and shows up as being on the 4th SATA port, but will not boot. And yes, my boot order is correct. RAID is first.

 

Well, 4th SATA port is bootable connection

 

It's not configured to boot off the 4th sata port at all, as that hard disk isn't in my boot order. It doesn't try to boot off of it either, as I can sometimes get the windows logo to splash but I have to subsequently remove the eSATA and hit the power button for it to continue booting. Most of the time it just tells me to insert valid boot media.