Insanely long bootup times with RAID!

[Solai]

I used to run a RAID 0 with two Maxtor 40Gb drives plugged into my Soyo P4S Dragon's onboard Highpoint RAID system. I changed my system so that my C:\ drive is a single WD 80Gb, and my media drive (R:\) is the RAID setup.

I remade and reformatted the array before using it. Everything works fine now, but when I restart, I get crazy bootup lags. Right after the Windows loading screen (with the green bar) but right before the welcome screen, I get a black monitor for about 5 minutes.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

Edit:
Also, I know it's the RAID because if I unplug the drives and reboot then it's a normal, 15-second bootup.

 

[Solai]

Anyone? This is a really really sucky problem for me =(.

 

[Steve]

At what point did you install the RAID drivers? Did you use the F6 method?

I would try doing a repair install, and doing the F6 method at its start.

 

[Solai]

The only thing is that I have the RAID as a secondary drive... I'm booting off of a WD 80Gb. Should I repair install onto the single drive?

 

[Steve]

No, repair the current installation in its place, just have your RAID floppy on hand for the first part (before you get to choose R).

 

[Solai]

Ok, and will this do anything to my data?

Edit: I tried doing the repair option, but it just loaded up my C:\Windows directory in a DOS console. What do I do from there?

 

[TerryMathews]

Originally posted by: Solai
Ok, and will this do anything to my data?

Edit: I tried doing the repair option, but it just loaded up my C:\Windows directory in a DOS console. What do I do from there?

Proceed with a normal installation and do not choose to format your HD. Setup will give you an option to repair the current installation.

Make sure you mash the F6 button when starting Setup and load those RAID drivers.

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Solai
I used to run a RAID 0 with two Maxtor 40Gb drives plugged into my Soyo P4S Dragon's onboard Highpoint RAID system. I changed my system so that my C:\ drive is a single WD 80Gb, and my media drive (R:\) is the RAID setup.

I remade and reformatted the array before using it. Everything works fine now, but when I restart, I get crazy bootup lags. Right after the Windows loading screen (with the green bar) but right before the welcome screen, I get a black monitor for about 5 minutes.

Has anyone ever heard of this?

Edit:
Also, I know it's the RAID because if I unplug the drives and reboot then it's a normal, 15-second bootup.

If you look in your System event logs, do you see any errors or warnings? What about in the application log?

 

[Solai]

Oh boy, I have a ton of errors.

In applications, I only have a warning: Windows cannot unload your classes registry file - it is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.

In system, however, I have a huge list of problems.

First, I get 6 of "The device, \Device\Scsi\hpt3xx1, did not respond within the timeout period." Then after that, those errors alternate with the warning "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\D during a paging operation."

These continue from 11:58 to 12:01, culminating with the warning above at 12:01. The next message arrives at 12:08 and it's "The Terminal Services service entered the running state."

Hmm.

 

[mechBgon]

Start by rescuing any data from the array that you care about, and stash it on the 80GB drive before it's Too Late.

 

[Solai]

Well, that's always comforting.

 

[mechBgon]

That's me, harbinger of doom I wouldn't trust a RAID0 with important data and if I wanted performance, I wouldn't be RAID0'ing a pair of slow-seeking ATA drives. Have you considered just using the drives as stand-alone drives?

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Solai
Oh boy, I have a ton of errors.

In applications, I only have a warning: Windows cannot unload your classes registry file - it is still in use by other applications or services. The file will be unloaded when it is no longer in use.

In system, however, I have a huge list of problems.

First, I get 6 of "The device, \Device\Scsi\hpt3xx1, did not respond within the timeout period." Then after that, those errors alternate with the warning "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk1\D during a paging operation."

These continue from 11:58 to 12:01, culminating with the warning above at 12:01. The next message arrives at 12:08 and it's "The Terminal Services service entered the running state."

Hmm.

OK, so by looking in the event logs on a system running Windows, we can see what actually went wrong. In this instance, the SCSI controller (most RAID and even some plain IDE cards look like SCSI controllers to Windows) has errors, and isn't able to contact the hard disk, for some reason.

So, I'd suggest backing up the data on that disk, reformatting, and seeing if the errors come back. If so, I'd break down the hardware for further testing.

As a quick test, though, you may wish to just grab the very latest driver from the manufacturer of the RAID card and see if things get any better.

 

[Solai]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
That's me, harbinger of doom I wouldn't trust a RAID0 with important data and if I wanted performance, I wouldn't be RAID0'ing a pair of slow-seeking ATA drives. Have you considered just using the drives as stand-alone drives?

I'm using them only for media like music, movies, games and pictures. The rest of my stuff will be on my standalone WD 80Gb drive.

I got the latest version of my RAID drivers, and I'm about to reformat the two drives to see what happens. Until then, I'm loving this 10-second bootup =)

Thanks a ton for the help so far, guys! Hopefully we'll solve this one...

Edit:

Ok, I deleted the array on the drives and tried to boot up, but it's the same situation. I even did the drives individually, and I'm getting some strange/inconsistant results. I'm going to make a table of when it works and doesn't work, and then I'll post it.

 

[Solai]

Whew!! I played with the drives and it turns out that one of them causes the long bootup every single time it's plugged in! I'll replace it and that should solve everything.

Thanks so much guys!!

 

[dclive]

Originally posted by: Solai
Whew!! I played with the drives and it turns out that one of them causes the long bootup every single time it's plugged in! I'll replace it and that should solve everything.

Thanks so much guys!!

Cool!

So, moral of the story, check the Windows Event Log, and from there we can learn a lot about what's going on inside of the machine.