RAID 0 Error Message

[Meld51]

Hello,
I turned my VGN-AR21S on yesterday and found the following error message in the system tray

A drive in a RAID 0 volume is failing. Try to backup data immediately.

I know what this means but I don't know
1. Is it a hardware or a software fault.
2. What o I do to cure this problem.

Meanwhile everything seems to be working OK?

All advice greatfully accepted!

[Meld51]

Some news on this problem, SONY called me out of the blue to arrange a repair of my VAIO. They have arranged to pick up my machine next week and check it out. So despite what I said in my last posting, I will let them have it...and we will see what they find.

They say that their turn round is about 5 working days.

[kee-lo_]

Let us know how it goes

[Meld51]

Will do Kee Lo

It is beginning to look like the Sony-giant is beginning to stir...!

[Meld51]

Latest news on the RAID0 problem:

I have backed up the system and transferred all my files onto another PC.

I restored the factory settings by doing a C drive restore only. I didn't bother to perform a full restore. After the restore the RAID error still existed (as I expected it would). A full partition restore might have solved the problem but I'll leave that to SONY to decide.

DHL have collected the goods. Turn round time is 5 t0 7 days I am told...

[Meld51]

Just had a text message from SONY to say that they have received my VAIO and turn round is expected to be 5 days. Well done SONY. This is good comms .

See! I don't always complain...credit where credit is due!

[Blencogo]

Thanks for keeping us up to date Meld51.

Let us know what they do at Sony - replace the drives or just reformat the RAID 0 Volume.

[kee-lo_]

I want to know what the problem was too, I am like 80% certain this is software error.

[Meld51]

Yes, I'll bottom this out.

My feeling at the moment is that it is a software issue (maybe messaging between software modules or protocol errors between firmware) but we may not get the full story here because I expect the service centre will swop the disk that reports the error.

If I had the time I would have performed a full reset with partition resetting before I handed it over to SONY. I have a sneaking suspicion that this would have cured the problem...Anyhow, I should not put the cart before the horse!

[jseyerle]

Hi all,
I am 99% confident my RAID0 Errors are resolved.
I had previously been getting them and I narrowed down why they occur to the point I could replicate the conditions and cause the RAID Erros 100% of the time.

Situation when I would get errors:
1)I had clean install of machine.
2) installed latest version of iTunes.
3)I copied 60 gig of MP3 from my external drive to a temp directory on my laptop
( i know I didnt need to do that but I wanted to test the drives performance)
4)I would then open iTunes, add my temp folder to iTunes, tell iTunes to Consolidate the songs. When you chose consolidate it basically copies all the MP3 from my temp folder to the iTunes Music folder.

** This is when the RAID0 Errrors would occur. During the massive copying from temp folder to iTunes Music folder. On top of RAID0 Erros CPU would normally be near max the entire time. **

I suspected the drives or the RAID Controller software just wasnt keeping up with the reads/writes on the drives or buffers were just getting filled with the 128k stripe size.

What I did to fix it?
1) Created Recovery DVDs
2) Backedup all my docs onto external HDD
3) Rebooted and went into BIOS RAID Configuration. Deleted existing Volume0. Created a new RAID0 Volume but this time with a 64k stripe instead of 128k. I know people are going to say 128k is the optimal for RAID0 but there are some varying arguments on this (google) so as I was having no luck with 128k stripe I decided to try my luck with 64k stripe.
4) Went thru whole recovery process
5) Did all the available updates from Vaio and Microsoft
6) Installed iTunes again
7) Copied all my MP3 from external HDD to the temp folder again
😎 Had iTunes add temp folder and consolidate it.

Guess what?!

** NO RAID0 Errors **
** CPU never got more than 20% **

It would be interesting if one of you do the same thing and use the 128k stripe to see if the problems simply went away because I reinstalled everything and created new RAID volume.

I will update this post in 1 weeks time if I do or don't have more RAID0 errors.

Good luck

[Meld51]

Interesting.

The RAID0 error I initiated came upon the next boot up after copying a file from a USB floppy disk drive BTW...just remembered.