# Why...WHY!?



## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

Okay, this is really pissing me off. Whenever I make a change in my hardware configuration, my damn RAID array gets corrupt and I have to reinstall Windows every damn time. This is the 4th time this month and its getting ridiculous. I just swapped out my temp 2GB of RAM (because my G.Skill decided he and the motherboard dont want to be friends anymore and he want back to his old friend of the EVGA 680i board and they live happily ever after) and put in my new Transcend 1066 RAM. After I did this simple swap, I booted up my computer to see that my RAID array has FAILED. I was pissed. I rebooted to see if it was a fluke and to my surprise, the screen said that it was active or w/e. As POST continued, it brought me to the boot manager (which i didnt have) and gave me the option of Vista and Vista.  So I chose both with no success. 

So I went to reload Windows. Formatted the hard drives. Press the Next button to start the Vista install. "one or more of these drives are not bootable in the BIOS" or some crap. So I used the WD drive tools and scanned both 80GB hdd's for errors. Did a full scan on both and both came back error free. In order to install Vista, I had to first install XP, then turn around and format again and this time install Vista to get it to work. 

WTF is up with my hard drives? Why do they not want to keep a RAID array with a simple RAM swap?

Please advise. 

At this point, Im DONE with RAID.


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## intel igent (Mar 22, 2008)

are you OC'ed?

if so thats more than likely the root of your problem

do you have your pci bus locked?


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

Locked?

Before I swapped out the RAM, i put everything on stock.


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## intel igent (Mar 22, 2008)

ya you lock your PCI bus in BIOS so that it doesnt scale with your FSB and cause data corruption


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## DaedalusHelios (Mar 22, 2008)

intel igent said:


> ya you lock your PCI bus in BIOS so that it doesnt scale with your FSB and cause data corruption




Who doesn't lol.  

Seriously though, I use raid0 in my gaming pc via NV raid, and my HTPC via Intel raid and I never had to reinstall on my HTPC with intel raid(ICH9R).

If its Intel you just boot it up, launch the utility and bam! Its done. Thats [CTRL Key] + [L Key] at boot up.

I did that after I changed motherboards. I just enabled raid in the bios and saved settings. I set PCI Express speed to Auto usually. No data corruption here.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

DaedalusHelios said:


> Who doesn't lol.
> 
> Seriously though, I use raid0 in my gaming pc via NV raid, and my HTPC via Intel raid and I never had to reinstall on my HTPC with intel raid(ICH9R).
> 
> ...



Ive been using RAID 0 for over a year now and i havent had any problems up until recently. (ICH9R)

I have no clue if it is locked or not and im not about to reinstall RAID right now just to give it a try. (unless my install craps on me again)


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## jbunch07 (Mar 22, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Ive been using RAID 0 for over a year now and i havent had any problems up until recently. (ICH9R)
> 
> I have no clue if it is locked or not and im not about to reinstall RAID right now just to give it a try. (unless my install craps on me again)



ouch dude that thats gotta be frustrating but it is very possible to screw up you sata controller if your bus is oced happed to me because i had it set to 125  you can bet ill never do that again, but a simple reinstall fixed, i wasn't using raid though.


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## Kursah (Mar 22, 2008)

I haven't run RAID..but I lose my SATA drives going over 119MHz on PCI-e.


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## DaedalusHelios (Mar 22, 2008)

I have my X38 board sitting at 140Mhz and nothing happens bad. Are you guys talking about heat problems when you lose you SATA controller stability.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

I dont overclock my PCIe or anything like that in the BIOS. Only overclock ill go is for CPU/RAM.


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## intel igent (Mar 22, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> I dont overclock my PCIe or anything like that in the BIOS. Only overclock ill go is for CPU/RAM.



yes but if you do not lock your PCI bus it will scale with your FSB and possibly cause instabillity/DATA corruption as they are linked


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

Hmmmm.....

It really doesnt do it in the course of reboots, but when I go to exchange a part. And if you recall, before I put my new RAM in I put everything on stock settings.


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## intel igent (Mar 22, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Hmmmm.....
> 
> It really doesnt do it in the course of reboots, but when I go to exchange a part. And if you recall, before I put my new RAM in I put everything on stock settings.



well judging by your other thread you have posted (didnt read it fully) you definately have an instabillity issue

youre going to have to get all of the settings right then after youre shure its stable, set up your RAID otherwise your just shooting yourself in the foot

DFI's have a seriously tweakable BIOS it may take you a while to get familiarized with it and find the propper setings


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

Im not messing with RAID for a while I think. (or unless I put in my other 2GB of 1066 and my windows install decides to fuck itself somehow)

As for the instability issue, I agree 100%. That was my exact thoughts when I was messing around with it. 

The DFI P35 and x38/48 boards have so many options, I dont know what all of them do. Especially the RAM stuff. If anyone has either of these boards and would like to help me out and tell me what they do, i would gladly appreciate it. 

What would you recommend the NB/SB, etc volts be? (im on air) Ive ran in teh past with my other RAM at 3.2GHz stable with stock NB/SB, etc volts. (vcore is at 1.35xx)


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## intel igent (Mar 22, 2008)

im still on 478/i865 so i aint much help in that department


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## Solaris17 (Mar 22, 2008)

i dont know about you guys but my pci buss auto locks......


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## Kreij (Mar 22, 2008)

The only problem I have seen with my rig is that if I update the BIOS, I lose the RAID array.
I just have to tell the BIOS about the array and all is well again.

I always bring everything back to deafult in the BIOS and check operation before doing a BIOS update. It's a PITA, but I have not had problems doing it this way.


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## btarunr (Mar 22, 2008)

An array could encounter CRC errors due to bad memory. The controller does a CRC of all the bits and pieces of a file it gets from the participant disks before every fetch.


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## Megasty (Mar 22, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Whenever I make a change in my hardware configuration, my damn RAID array gets corrupt and I have to reinstall Windows every damn time



That's why I don't run raid :shadedshu


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## Oliver_FF (Mar 22, 2008)

Megasty said:


> That's why I don't run raid :shadedshu



And that's why my HDD performance is so bad :shadedshu


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 22, 2008)

Megasty said:


> That's why I don't run raid :shadedshu



Ive never had the issue before when i made a hardware change. Thats the strange part.


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## Megasty (Mar 22, 2008)

CrAsHnBuRnXp said:


> Ive never had the issue before when i made a hardware change. Thats the strange part.



I tried raid once, then I added a single piece of ram & the array was corrupted. That was pure stupid nonsense.


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## Pinchy (Mar 22, 2008)

Whenever my RAID array fails its always still bootable. So, I just boot into windows and use the Matrix storage controller to repair it.

If its not bootable, then you got problems .


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## 0V3CHKiN (Mar 22, 2008)

I used to have RAID 0 myself. 2 WD RE2 400GB drives. It worked flawlessly for six months. Then Windows would lock up. I would have to reboot, and the BIOS says it couldn't detect the RAID. After three or four reboots it would then recognize it. I would also get just random times where I boot my computer up and it does the same thing: no RAID recognized. I didn't install any new hardware, nothing was overclocked, and BIOS settings were all on default other than enabling RAID on the SATA ports. I was using whatever the NV Raid was on the ASUS A8N-E at the time. I got fed up and just split the RAID up and went back to single drives. I did love the performance though. Extracting RAR files went so much faster.


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## Pinchy (Mar 23, 2008)

Most RAID array failures I have had have been total BS. For example, the last one I had (when i was dual booting Linux and Vista) wouldnt boot Vista (in the process of installing Linux). The whole RAID array failed and I thought I lost everything. I then plugged the drives straight into my mATX rig (into sata ports 2 and 3 (ports 0 and 1 are already a RAID0 array)) and to my total suprise, the RAID was there. It booted into windows (from the original RAID ports; sata port 0 and 1) and when it booted in it installed my second hard drive. I used the matrix storage controller to repair my RAID and bam, worked again on my comp when I put it back in.


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## CrAsHnBuRnXp (Mar 23, 2008)

Megasty said:


> I tried raid once, then I added a single piece of ram & the array was corrupted. That was pure stupid nonsense.



Sounds like what happened to me.


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## regan1985 (Mar 24, 2008)

i have a similar fate as you,found myself formating all the time, it worked for 3months one and i felt safe so i put my music and pictures on it not backed up anywhere else and bang same thing! that was a 1tb raid0 so i want happy since then ive got back to just vista or xp on one drive and everything else somewhere else! mine wasnt overclocked at the time either


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