HI I have a second rig that I use for gaming and other testing etc - no important data at all. It's running a 3x 80Gb RAID0 array on the ati motherboard controller. I have run a defrag, windows error check, deleted a load of old un-needed files and done hdtune error check and all appears to be fine. Also I don't get any crashes and it seems to run windows and games at a very good speed. I've also just set the BIOS back to optimal defaults (except the RAID part obviously). The problem is that when I try to run HDTune benchmark I get an error that reads - 'read error - test aborted' and I want to know why. Any Ideas? I've tried reinstalling HDTune and I get a similar error from HDTach and the everest HD test just freezes until I click 'stop'. I want to avoid re-installing windows as its a hassle.
Well, it seems like a dying HDD to me. Do you have your OS installed on a 3-drive RAID 0 array - on a motherboard controller? That means that everything is lost even if one of those drives or the mobo messes up. The risk is at least three times more than with no RAID. Anyway, I'd suggest backing up anything important (if you have any, you said you don't but maybe saved games?) and checking the drives with a bit-by-bit testing software and even checking the SMART statuses.
Yes, I do and yes all is lost if I get a failure. I have nothing I don't mind loosing! Nothing important to backup. Most of the gaming I do single player is on another PC, all I use this one for is LAN games and occasionally I take it away with me when working away from home (it's SFF) - in which case I transfer saved games onto it and then off later. I've checked the array with HDTune's error check and with Windows XP error scan, with no failures at all! Is there any other software people can suggest? I cannot get SMART data from the drives as the array is seen as a single drive without SMART. I doubt the drives have a failure, it seems to me to be more of a file system problem or MBR issue - but I don't what or how to fix it.
Just a quick update - I turned off RAID in the BIOS and booted from CD with UBCD4Win and ran HDTune from there. All three drives will benchmark just fine that way, on their own but as an array they just won't do it. Furthermore, I can run individual benchmarks on everest except for the 'linear read'. Random read etc are fine. Linear read fails immediately so I'm guessing there's some sort of file system error where the linear read tests want to start at.
