(no subject)
Aug. 24th, 2009 11:44 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elizillaSo I think the problem with my PC is the raid controller. I can come up just fine on either of the two hard drives, except for an error on startup that says there's a problem with one of my drives. But if I plug both drives in and try to boot, I get the "Something is wrong with your hardware!" message.
The raid controller is built in on the motherboard. I guess I can replace the motherboard. But I need to figure out whether I can just plug a new motherboard in to the existing hard drives. I'm guessing if the new one is the same, this would probably work, assuming the flashes aren't too different. But getting an exact match for the motherboard may be hard, and if it doesn't match, I might need to do more fiddling. Also, this is the PC designed to be more quiet, so it's got gigantic heat sinks to save on the need for fans. The huge heat sinks will make this more fiddly.
I should probably back up my data from one of the hard drives, while I can. Time to go find my portable hard drive.
Edited to add: Tech support at the company I got my system from thinks that the problem is still a bad hard drive. He also say that by booting to each hard drive individually, I have broken the mirror and they are not going to sync up again, so I will have to reinstall windows. He recommended I run this HDTune freeware app against them, and see what it thinks. So I set out to do that, and one of the drives now will not come up. So it looks like he's right; I have lost a drive. He also said the onboard raid controller is just not very good, and that I would do well to get a separate raid card that plugs into a PCI slot.
I don't know how to choose a raid controller card. They are confusing and expensive. I think I will table that until I am ready to get my next new system, and just keep going with the onboard raid for now. But I've ordered two new hard drives; as long as I have to reinstall windows anyway I figure I might as well get larger ones. I can move the remaining good hard drive to some other machine where it's not part of a raid array.
The raid controller is built in on the motherboard. I guess I can replace the motherboard. But I need to figure out whether I can just plug a new motherboard in to the existing hard drives. I'm guessing if the new one is the same, this would probably work, assuming the flashes aren't too different. But getting an exact match for the motherboard may be hard, and if it doesn't match, I might need to do more fiddling. Also, this is the PC designed to be more quiet, so it's got gigantic heat sinks to save on the need for fans. The huge heat sinks will make this more fiddly.
I should probably back up my data from one of the hard drives, while I can. Time to go find my portable hard drive.
Edited to add: Tech support at the company I got my system from thinks that the problem is still a bad hard drive. He also say that by booting to each hard drive individually, I have broken the mirror and they are not going to sync up again, so I will have to reinstall windows. He recommended I run this HDTune freeware app against them, and see what it thinks. So I set out to do that, and one of the drives now will not come up. So it looks like he's right; I have lost a drive. He also said the onboard raid controller is just not very good, and that I would do well to get a separate raid card that plugs into a PCI slot.
I don't know how to choose a raid controller card. They are confusing and expensive. I think I will table that until I am ready to get my next new system, and just keep going with the onboard raid for now. But I've ordered two new hard drives; as long as I have to reinstall windows anyway I figure I might as well get larger ones. I can move the remaining good hard drive to some other machine where it's not part of a raid array.
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-24 11:51 pm (UTC)<aol>ME TOO!!!</aol>
Date: 2009-08-25 06:36 am (UTC)-R
Re: <aol>ME TOO!!!</aol>
Date: 2009-08-25 01:13 pm (UTC)Re: <aol>ME TOO!!!</aol>
Date: 2009-08-27 03:44 pm (UTC)This may be true, but R is the fount of all that is dumb about RAID arrays, which is what my point was.
-R
(dumb)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-25 02:21 pm (UTC)Here's a place to start researching http://www.carbonite.com/ (not a customer, just heard of them)
no subject
Date: 2009-08-25 02:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 04:16 am (UTC)Why? The one drive should boot fine as a degrade RAID. Install a new drive when it arrives, and then do whatever incantations are required to rebuild the RAID. (Magic keys during POST or some utility program on the disk that came with the motherboard--frequently also available as downloads from the mobo vendor.)
>I don't know how to choose a raid controller card. They are confusing and expensive. I think I will table that until I am ready to get my next new system, and just keep going with the onboard raid for now.
Just stick with the onboard RAID. I've got a number of machines between home and work running RAID through the mobo and I've never had a problem. (Though, the software RAID/LVM offered by Linux and BSD are even better--sorry, had to.)
You know what does fail on me? Video cards. Four have outright died at work, and I think one may have contributed to the death of my server's mobo. Meaning, in general I recommend onboard video, too. Don't let all those gasps of horror from the WoW players bother you.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 02:07 pm (UTC)The new hard drives are twice the size of the existing ones, so I'll get some extra space from this. And a fresh install of windows will run faster, they always do, so I'm not going to worry about it too much. Just do it and get it over with.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 05:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-26 07:48 pm (UTC)I may still try to get it to do the recovery thing. I may stick one of the new drives in there in place of the failed drive, and see if I can persuade it to do that rebuild. If it does, then I could replace the non-failed old drive, and get it to rebuild back over to there. With both larger drives in place, and the smaller drive gone, will it figure out that it now has twice as much space, or will it carry on thinking it's the same size as before? Stay tuned.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 03:47 am (UTC)I'd doubt it. You mightcould get that to happen with a Gparted Live CD.
I think you should try the rebuild experiment, because if it doesn't work, there's no reason to install two new drives in the thing.
BTW, who made this mobo? Foxconn? Jetway? Biostar? Dell?
no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 05:03 am (UTC)I have the box powered up and running, right now. The OS comes up; I am using it to work in LJ right now. I booted it with a new disk in place of the old bad one. It still flashes errors as it flies through the BIOS, but they flash past so fast that I can't read them, so I don't know what it's complaining about. I'm going to let it run overnight. I'll reboot it tomorrow and see whether the BIOS screens are still complaining then.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 01:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-27 01:34 pm (UTC)I left the PC to run all night, and this morning I rebooted. It flew through the BIOS without any complaints. So that guy was right, the raid does seem to have recovered on its own, despite having no indication it was doing so.
Tonight I'll try replacing the remaining small hard drive with the new one, and see if it recovers to there, and if so, whether it realizes it's now larger. But for now, I'm supposed to be getting some work done, and I have a lot of case that need my attention.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-28 03:22 pm (UTC)That's the cool thing about Drobo: mismatched drive sizes are a snap. It adapts and works to increase space as you get larger drives and hot swap them in for older/smaller/failed drives.