Hard Drive dead or something else?

[Cook1]

I've been running two WD Blacks 640GB in Raid 0 for 2-3 years now.

I recently upgraded my case to the 600T which has the power button on top of the case. I have a cat who likes to lay on top of my computer and thus has been hitting the power button causing my PC to shut down.

I have had no issues with the hard drives, no indication of them getting slower or any errors. One evening my cat hits the button 2-3 times and I'm now thinking to just unwire it and to start my PC through the motherboard. Well the 3rd time the power button gets hit and I start to boot back up it shows an error on my raid. I can't boot into windows or safe mode and I don't have the OS disc as it had gotten lost in my recent move.

Question is - is my drive really dead or do you guys think that from all the power offs it just tweaked something in the RAID and after a fresh install it should be fine?

Since this happened I want to upgrade to an SSD (240-256GB) for the OS and a few games and then use my two 640GB WD Black Drives for other programs (photoshop, word, etc.), music, photos, etc.

Or should I just bite the bullet and get a 1TB drive from the get go and discard the drives I already have?

 

[Ketchup]

Can you give us the details of the errors from the raid controller and from windows loading? Without that info it is too hard too tell.

But I will give you a guess: one most likely caused the other. If the raid controller is giving you errors, that is probably why Windows won't load. Whether that involves the drive is hard to tell at this point though.

 

[denis280]

Can you give us the details of the errors from the raid controller and from windows loading? Without that info it is too hard too tell.

I Agree with you Michael.

I have a cat who likes to lay on top of my computer and thus has been hitting the power button

LOl did get one like this the same problem.just did a CMOS and voila. (put a piece of cardboard over the switch)

 

[frozentundra123456]

I Agree with you Michael.LOl did get one like this the same problem.just did a CMOS and voila. (put a piece of cardboard over the switch)

My cat does this too (gets on top of the computer), but he only does it when he is mad and wants attention because I wont give him food or treats because I am trying to get him to lose weight.

 

[Cook1]

Glad to know I'm not the only one with an evil cat.

And the error it gives is this...

Error occurred (0)

 

[Ketchup]

Read through this thread. There seem to be some good suggestions. Most are saying it's not the hard drive:

http://www.wirelessforums.org/alt-comp-hardware/error-occurred-0-raid-0-what-does-mean-14336.html

 

[Cook1]

Thanks for the link - read the entire thread and now I have some questions.

I am unable to boot into Windows or Safe Mode.

Basically how do I go about installing the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) RAID Driver?

I can slap it on a flash drive but I don't have the Windows 7 OS disk anymore (lost it in the last move) otherwise I would have tried to pop that in there and do a repair from that.

 

[Ketchup]

Yeah, without a spare hard drive or an OS disk, this would be difficult, to say the least.

 

[Cook1]

Well, bought a W7 HP disc/COA so I'll get it fixed while having an additional windows key code (for what reason, I have no clue, but I suppose it's handy to have on hand?).

But the more I think about the thread you linked Ketchup79 and the error on my drive, I'm pretty certain it isn't my drive being dead.

Because I have RAID 0 I run HD Tune several times a month to make sure there are no errors on my drives and they're healthy as I want to know prior to them dying if I need to do a backup. The last time I ran it was several days prior to this incident happening and like always it came back clean. So I have faith that I can get everything back up and running once I get the OS disk.

 

[monkeydelmagico]

Well, bought a W7 HP disc/COA so I'll get it fixed while having an additional windows key code (for what reason, I have no clue, but I suppose it's handy to have on hand?).

But the more I think about the thread you linked Ketchup79 and the error on my drive, I'm pretty certain it isn't my drive being dead.

Because I have RAID 0 I run HD Tune several times a month to make sure there are no errors on my drives and they're healthy as I want to know prior to them dying if I need to do a backup. The last time I ran it was several days prior to this incident happening and like always it came back clean. So I have faith that I can get everything back up and running once I get the OS disk.

You can download win .iso onto usb if you have a valid key and access to internet through another computer. http://www.w7forums.com/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-image-downloads-t12325.html
Save you the $$$ of ordering another OS

 

[Cook1]

Alright, got my OS disk.

So I pop the disc into the drive, go into the BIOS and change the boot order. Boot from the CD and then what?

 

[denis280]

Boot from cd first then hdd second.

 

[Cook1]

I meant...so how do I install the Intel Matrix Storage Manager when I'm unable to load into Safe Mode.