Raid 1 Array showing random corrupted files

Juice Box

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2003
9,615
1
0
So, I currently have 2 320gig HDDs running in a RAID 1 (mirrored) array in windows XP. They are not functioning as my system drive, but rather as my media storage (I've lost my entire music collection once, and I'm trying not to let that happen ever again).

So, I setup the array in the Dos prompt that the PCI RAID card displays on boot. The Card I have is a Silicon Image Sil3124 Serial ATA I/II to PCI-X 32/64-bit Host Controller Card.

Anyways, now, whenever I am in Windows XP, and doing something that involves the drive seeking or reading (listening to music, watching videos, etc.) I get a "so and so file is corrupt, run chkdsk to fix it" window in the system tray. It comes down to me running a chkdsk on the drive every few days to get the message to go away. Any reason this is happening? Is there any easy fix that won't result in me having to format the array and start over? I really hope this doesn't one day totally crap out on me and I'm left with nothing :(

Any ideas?
 

btcomm1

Senior member
Sep 7, 2006
943
0
0
As somone told me before, Raid 1 is not a good backup solution, because as far as I understand it, the second drive will copy whatever the first disc has, so if it gets corrupted files the corrupted files will be copied to the second drive. Raid 1 is for uptime, It would probrably be better if you had a backup program that made back ups of the first time to the second one.
 

Juice Box

Diamond Member
Nov 7, 2003
9,615
1
0
Originally posted by: btcomm1
As somone told me before, Raid 1 is not a good backup solution, because as far as I understand it, the second drive will copy whatever the first disc has, so if it gets corrupted files the corrupted files will be copied to the second drive. Raid 1 is for uptime, It would probrably be better if you had a backup program that made back ups of the first time to the second one.

Well, regardless, I am getting corrupted files. I want to know how to make that stop :p
 

Matthias99

Diamond Member
Oct 7, 2003
8,808
0
0
...check for hardware stability? Random corruption is usually from hardware problems (or, more rarely, messed-up drivers).

If you're overclocking, go back to stock. Note that overclocking the FSB on some motherboards will automatically bump up the PCI bus speed, which is generally a Very Bad Idea if you have a disk controller on the PCI bus.
 

Fullmetal Chocobo

Moderator<br>Distributed Computing
Moderator
May 13, 2003
13,704
7
81
Does your RAID controller have the capability to compare the two and ensure that everything is mirroring correctly? I'm not familiar with your RAID controller, but the ones I've had in the past have this capability. Doing that will rule out (atleast to a degree) the RAID controller itself.

I would also run memtest, as memory could cause corruption as well.