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    Bad Sectors on RAID'd FX

    Discussion in 'Gateway and eMachines' started by spaceoddity, Jun 19, 2008.

  1. spaceoddity

    spaceoddity Notebook Enthusiast

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    Hey all.

    I received my 171 XL FX in April, and it didn't come in RAID as it was supposed to. I ended up setting it up myself shortly afterwards. Then about 3 weeks ago certain programs simply wouldn't launch, and a chkdsk revealed bad sectors. It was able to fix it to a certain extent, but now more are showing up. Has anyone else had this problem?

    Could this be a simple case of premature HDD failure? Or is the problem endemic to the chipset? Did I even use "endemic" correctly in that last sentence?

    The thing is, if I have the drives replaced I need to know whether to RAID them again or not, I'd really love to use it but not if that is the cause of the failure.

    Also, if I contact Gateway about the warranty, will they replace the drives, and if so, in such a manner that I won't have to ship my whole lappy in or experience any downtime with it?


    Sorry about the question bombardment!

    Thanks guys.
     
    spaceoddity, Jun 19, 2008
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  2. Greg

    Greg Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    RAID 1 or 0? In either event, you need to save your data elsewhere and ID which drive is faulty.
     
    Greg, Jun 19, 2008
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  3. iaTa

    iaTa Do Not Feed

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    Faulty HD for sure. Have you installed Intel Matrix Manager which will give you more details about the fault - which drive etc?
     
    iaTa, Jun 19, 2008
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  4. spaceoddity

    spaceoddity Notebook Enthusiast

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    Greg, it's RAID 0, and iaMtHeAnimal I haven't installed Intel Matrix Manager, I'll have to give it a shot, though I'm not sure what it is...is it just a diagnostic utility/is it complicated to use?

    Thanks for the replies guys!
     
    spaceoddity, Jun 19, 2008
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  5. spaceoddity

    spaceoddity Notebook Enthusiast

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    Also, is there a way I can take a "snapshot" of my drive so that if I end up replacing the disks, I can have it exactly as it was, with all the windows updates, program installs, game saves etc...???
     
    spaceoddity, Jun 19, 2008
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  6. Johnksss

    Johnksss .

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    long lengthy process and not guaranteed to work.... but i would start by doing a complete chkdsk with surface scan. if the drive or drives aren't in "serious" need of repair, you should be able to repair it enough to do a clone or image of the drive array.(speculation of course) "most" disk cloning or imaging software will not clone or image a corrupt drive. this usually includes snapshots as well...

    not really sure about the intel matrix.... my drives are healthy so they show no information on checking them for errors
     
    Johnksss, Jun 19, 2008
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  7. iaTa

    iaTa Do Not Feed

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    Yeah you can take a snapshot of your drives but it took me a long time to work out how to do it and it's quite complicated. You need to make an Acronis True Image boot CD and ensure the Intel Matrix RAID drivers are selected at the CD setup stage. Boot your PC using the CD and use Ghost 8.3 to image your RAID setup to an external USB hard drive. Works quite well - I've done it a few times.

    You can get Intel Matrix Manager from here by the way:

    http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Product_Filter.aspx?ProductID=2101

    EDIT: Sorry just realised I couldn't get Acronis to work so I used Winternals ERD Commander 2005 boot CD and integrated the RAID drivers as mentioned previously.
     
    iaTa, Jun 19, 2008
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  8. Johnksss

    Johnksss .

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    well there you...the sort version! :D

    i know with server version of acronis (the one i use on our raided servers) it does it all.
     
    Johnksss, Jun 19, 2008
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