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]

Screenshots, yes I'll do that. I tried yesterday but couldn't get the links to work. I'll have another go today since I am less busy!

I already have the screen shots saved... here is a word document with loads of screenshots in it:

It seems that one or the disks is unallocated. Do you know how to deal with this?

[kee-lo_]

Normally you right click it and format it?

[cheekymunky]

Hi, I also had this issue only after upgrading to Vista!
After several tests on the drives and with no apparent problem with the actual machines performance etc, i took the following action.

Right click on the intel storage matrix console icon and run this as an administrator.
Click allow on the annoying vista confirmations.
Then right click on the apparent errornous raid volume and select ignore error.

You can also veryfy the raid data here but i'm sure as with mine there is no problem.

I have been using my machine without issues for 7 weeks now, no data loss no hard drive problems, as this only appeared with vista I have to assume that this is a bug/conflict not yet recognised.

[Meld51]

Yes Kee-lo.

Right click and create a partition. Then format the partition and that's it. I now have my space back albeit in 3 partitions rather than 2.

So far, an un-RAIDed system seems to be OK. I see no noticeable drop off in disk performance but we will see as time goes on.

It now appears that I have a satisfactory system again...thanks experts!

[Blencogo]

That's a bit naughty replacing one drive and reinstalling the OS on this one non-RAID Drive.

To reconfigure RAID now would require a full reformat and system install.

Quite frankly, I think this is a shoddy repair by Sony - if it was my machine I would be complaining like hell and forcefully insist they put it back to its proper configuration. I am very disappointed with Sony's response.

[Meld51]

Hello Blencogo,

I agree that it was a half baked job but I can't really be bothered to muck about any more, though they will receive the benefit of my thoughts when I next contact them about the VISTA upgrade I am due (as you probably know from my other major thread /arguement about the Moduslink fiasco.

Effectively I have recovered the disk space that appeared to be lost. It looks like things are moving along re Vista so that will be an opportunity to restructure the storage when I perform a clean Vista upgrade.

I don't expect this upgrade will happen without a certain amount of aggravation of course.

By the way, all of my problems with SONY pale into insignificance compared to the problem I have with Toshiba. I have had a running problem with them for about a year now relating to service support.

Finally, a compiment(!), I am very impressed with you VAIO experts. Others would have skated over the issues. I have felt supported by you all if not always by SONY. For instance, you set up a thread re Moduslink for SONY to monitor...good move that. It caused a Belgian bloke to contact me and fight the fight with Moduslink and it looks like this issue will be resolved.

Though I think you should pester the SONY people to make the search function operate on this forum. Much of the usefullness of this site is lost because you can't search by topic.

[kee-lo_]

Finally, a compiment(!), I am very impressed with you VAIO experts. Others would have skated over the issues. I have felt supported by you all if not always by SONY. For instance, you set up a thread re Moduslink for SONY to monitor...good move that. It caused a Belgian bloke to contact me and fight the fight with Moduslink and it looks like this issue will be resolved.

That's because we're not customer service robots who have a 386 chip running them with Win 3.11 as an OS. We take time, care and use our combined capabilities to help people who need on-the-spot help, and we're not governed by money and given rigurous times to work.

[dazagro19]

Have the same problem with AR51su, after installing iTunes 4 days ago, i started getting raid 0 errors. I even updated Intel Matrix storage driver as said in some thread, but it didnt help. So, 4th day vista stopped responding, crashed every reboot.
I tried C: recovery it didnt help. Does anybody know if full recovery helps?
I am really pissed off, i spent 3k € on this machine!!!!

[sbkenny]

I have just had this problem with my AR51SU after installing itunes last week. Have done a full recovery and downloaded the lastest Riad Drivers. Things seem to be back to normal, ie no Raid 0 errors but have not reinstalled itunes, dont think I will just yet.

One thing I have noticed is I cannot play Blu Ray films. Any ideas? Any updates on the itunes conflict?