Partition map keeps disappearing

[muffiin]

I recently bought 5 3TB Seagate Barracuda hard drives configured in RAID 5. So far, about every two weeks, the drive will suddenly become unallocated and not accessible. Does anyone know why or how this happens? Is this bad hardware or is this a software issue? I haven't noticed it happening at a certain capacity, either.

I'm not worried about the data because I can get it off, but I don't want to have to keep reformatting and copying data back and forth.

 

[kleinkinstein]

Have you tried making the mappings persistent? If you open a command prompt and type net use /? you'll see the persistent switch. Try adding it to the mappings in your login script and see if that doesn't cure the problem.

 

[Elixer]

Did you check the SMART info for each drive ? What controller are you using, and what OS ?

Sounds like one (or more) is going bad.

 

[muffiin]

The SMART info is fine. Doesn't show any errors. As far as the controller goes, it's the one on the motherboard, Gigabyte ga-890gpa-ud3h, for now. I'm running Windows 7 x64.

I did put all the drives through stress testing before I started using them and they all passed.