AHCI Device Verification Error Samsung F1 Spinpoint HD103UJ

[varneraa]

I picked up a Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ from newegg a little over two months ago, installed vista 64 ultimate and things have been running pretty smoothly since then. Yesterday I received my second 2x2GB DDR2800 Gskill (F2-6400CL5D-4GBPQ) kit to bump my system up to 8GB of ram. I installed the new ram and the system booted, no noticeable issues. I decided to download memtest86 v2.11 and make sure that everything was clean with the new memory. The first pass ran through fine and then I got the itch to start tweaking the memory.

The rest of the system is a qx6800, gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R.

The original install had AHCI enabled, but for memtest to load(it hung after the "Loading...." dialogue with AHCI enabled) I needed to turn that off to run from the bootable CD.

After a little tweaking I managed to push the memory a little too far and had to clear cmos.
I adjusted the memory timings again, but forgot to fix the boot order to make sure that it booted from the memtest cd again.

This is the first time I received(I'll double check the wording again when I'm home):

Disk Read Error
Press ctrl+alt+del to reboot

At the time I thought this was due to the fact that I was in RAID/AHCI disabled mode in the bios. So then I rebooted and fixed the boot order and started restoring my normal bios defaults, including enabling AHCI.

On the next reboot AHCI took longer than normal to recognize the drives(yes long even for AHCI), and after what I'm assuming was a timeout period it listed my Samsung Drive and on the next line(again, I'll double check the wording again when I'm home):

Drive Verification Error

It then lists my other two SATA drives without any such errors.

I've reverted all memory timings and clock frequencies for the system back to normal.

At this point I downloaded the 2.11 version of the ES-Tools from Samsungs website and ran a scan on the drive. It picked up a bad sector and asked me to format the drive and perform the scan again, and if it fails this test to contact Samsung.

I'm not ready to format this drive yet, since it still has my full vista install.
I've been maintaining backups of important data on the drive using the backup feature in Norton 360 to my 500G secondary drive.

A few questions remain that I'm hoping someone here can answer?

1) Does this "Drive Verification Error" necessarily mean that there is an issue with the drive? I'm not fully versed in the verification methods for AHCI, I'll try to do some reading after this post.

2) Anyone think this is actually related to the OC attempt as opposed to a terrible coincidence?

3) I've placed a rush order with newegg for a new drive. I'm hoping I can image the old one to this new one and have my system back up and running while I find out if there is a defect in the original drive. Anyone had any luck with this method, or have recommendations on software to use?

4) I also placed the order with newegg with the idea that maybe it's time for me to start using a RAID setup, so that I can have better recovery from these types of errors. Anyone have any comments on running a RAID1 setup with two drives as my OS partition?
[EDIT] Fixed the RAID0 above to be RAID1, and after a bit more consideration and looking at the price for TB drives I've ordered another drive to give me a total of 3 for a RAID 5 setup.

Thanks in advance,
TJ

 

[taltamir]

1. i dont know
2. only relationship i can think of, is if you pushed the limits of the PSU it could have started having power fluctuations which is really really bad for hard drives.
3. i dont know.
4. raid0 makes it HARDER to recover, not easier, it makes it a lot easier to LOSE DATA though... only RAID1 and 5 and 6 are any good, and of those you should never use a mobo controller for anything but raid1. 5 and 6 should either be in OS mode (ideally on an open source os, aka, linux or solar) OR be done using 300+$ pure hardware raid card.

 

[varneraa]

Originally posted by: taltamir
2. only relationship i can think of, is if you pushed the limits of the PSU it could have started having power fluctuations which is really really bad for hard drives.

2) I'm pretty sure I'm not pushing the PSU too far, at this point everything was at stock voltage.

Originally posted by: taltamir
4. raid0 makes it HARDER to recover, not easier, it makes it a lot easier to LOSE DATA though...

4) I'll edit the original post... I meant to say RAID1. Also at this point I've adjusted my order for two new drives, so depending on the fate of the drive in question here, I'll use it after a low level format or wait for the replacement from Samsung and do a RAID 5 install.

Originally posted by: taltamir
4. ... of those you should never use a mobo controller for anything but raid1. 5 and 6 should either be in OS mode (ideally on an open source os, aka, linux or solar) OR be done using 300+$ pure hardware raid card.

4 Just wondering what the issues are with using a mobo raid controller? Any in particular with the GA-P35-DS3R that I'm planning to use?

Thanks for the response.

 

[taltamir]

2. doesn't matter... as you raise the clockspeed, even without raising the voltage, you increase power consumption EXPONENTIALLY. Actually raising the voltage ALSO increases power consumption exponentially... and then the two are multiplied together... if the PSU was borderline to begin with, then it could have happened during the OC.
4. Turns out low level formats have not been possible for about 10 years now... new drives have their tracks prewritten using special tools, and their heads are not accurate enough to write their own track information. (I just recently found out).

 

[varneraa]

As far as the PSU, I'm almost certain that wasn't the issue. I've done some overclocking on this system before. I was running the CPU at stock frequency and voltage, the RAM I'm using runs at 1.8V. Previously on the same mobo, with the same power supply I was running the CPU at ~3.5 GHz, overvolted(can't recall how much the overvolt was), with DDR2 overclocked running at 2.1V(different memory at the time required a higher voltage for the speced timings).

I ran this setup through full 3dmark, Everest, and normal use, without any issues. The issues I saw overclocking past this were related to stressed timings.

The power supply is a Corsair HX620W. I also have a G92 based 8800GTS running in the system.

Obviously there's not a definitive way for me to tell that this wasn't a power issue, but given past experience with the system I think the PSU is ok.

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Good info on the low level format, thanks.

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Also wondering if you could expand a bit on why I shouldn't use the on board RAID controller for a 2+1 RAID5 setup?

 

[taltamir]

Mmmm... that is a pretty beefy psu so it is probably not the case as you said.

 

[varneraa]

As far as ICH9 for RAID5, what advantage would I have using an external RAID controller? Or what detriment would I see using the ICH9 Raid controller?

 

[taltamir]

lemme quote myself:

there are three way of doing raid... pure software, pure hardware, and hybrid.

Pure software aka OS,level raid (ex: ZFS on osol, windows based raid, linux based): slow (comparatively), reliable, free, no single point of failure, easily migrateable, etc
I use pure software raid.

Pure hardware (ex: 300+$ controllers): blazing fast, single point of failure (can be repaired by exact replacement of potentially hard to find hardware in the future), proprietary, non migrateable, etc

Hybrid (motherboards) - all the disadvantages of pure software, all the disadvantages of pure hardware, none of the benefits of either, and a many new disadvantages unique to hybrid (such as array loss on cmos clear) and it being even slower than the pure software implementation.

Hybrid (mobo raid) has one and only one unique advantage... Windows cannot be booted off of a RAID software array (some other oses can!), only a pure hardware or hybrid raid can be used as a windows boot drive. And the pure hardware is expensive while the hybrid is usually "free" (included in mobo price and has a ton of disadvantages and risks)

Anyone that knows anything would tell you to never, ever, ever! use mobo based raid. Actually I went against such advice from several professionals (what with me being a professional myself, and mostly thinking "it can't be THAT bad")... well i was wrong, it was worse than I ever imagined, i didn't give up easily either... i tried various configurations such as raid5 and raid1 on a variety of mobos over of the years, nforce 2, 4, 5, and intel chips (ICH#R)... all were bitter disappointments despite having been given plenty of time