Mobo or SATA RAID??

[Cybrcriminal]

You guys are my last hope for figuring out what I need to do here.
Specs: Athlon 64 3800+, 2GB Corsair XMS DDR400, WD Raptor SATA 74GB RAID0

One or two months ago my computer was working flawlessly then all of a sudden it started freezing and stalling. Instead of the windows screen showing up for a few seconds it would take anywhere from 1 to 15 minutes! Even after formatting to make sure the file system wasnt the problem it still has the same problem. For example windows takes too long to start, itunes takes several minutes to actually show up after I lauch it, etc... It even had to dump physical memory last night which is confusing because that seems like more of a RAM problem. Anyway this is an emergency to me because I'm having frequent data corruption. I have a lot of experience with computers and I dont know what to do. Does this sound like a motherboard or SATA RAID problem? RAM? CPU?

To minimize time without a computer my options are:
1) Exchange the motherboard
2) Trade one raptor for a 250GB SATA and ditch RAID if thats the problem
3) 1 and 2

Thanks for advice!

 

[erikistired]

try loading windows on one drive and see if that fixes your problem. that's probably the easiest and quickest thing to do.

 

[Tarrant64]

I agree. I guess try installing Windows onto one of the drives and don't set them up in Raid. Good call Fisher.

 

[Sideswipe001]

I would bet one of the Raptors is failing, and not the motherboard. If the problem exists with EACH of the raptors, when they aren't in RAID, then I'd start to worry about the MoBo.

 

[Oyeve]

I had a simular issue on my system onece but I did not have my SATA drive in a raid. I put SATA cable in the other SATA port and that fixed my problem.

 

[Cybrcriminal]

How could I test if one of the raptors is failing besides installing windows on both of them individually and playing around until I get it to stall/freeze? Is there an easier way to find out which one it might be?

 

[erikistired]

you can try running a hdd diagnostic util on them. even reading the SMART codes might tell you if something is up. with a seagate drive i'd suggest seatools, not sure if there is a WD or generic equiv.

 

[Tarrant64]

I believe a lot of HD manufacturers have their own tools to test their hard drives. I think Hitachi, Maxtor, and Seagate do. Check WD's website and see if they have one.