A geeks worst nightmare.....

Ok i decided to rebuild my raid array after i found out the 16k stripe size i was running was way off from being optimal . So here i go backing ever thing up to an old 40GB harddrive i had liying around every thing goes fine ( if not slow :-/ ) any way i got every thing backed up to the 40GB and i took it out because my bios was trying to boot from it ( long story ) I rebooted and went into the raid setup and changed the stripe size... started win XP setup and formated the array ( erasing every thing )and started installing win xp blah blah blah installed all the windows updates drivers all that good stuff ......ok i turned off my system and installed the 40Gb harddrive and booted the system and CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK came from the harddrive ...my heart stopped .......the bios dident detect it CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK .....Did i just loose all of my stuff over a ~3% speed boost !?!?!?! I checked the IDE cable checked the slave master settings all fine rebooted CLUNK CLUNK CLUNK ...... .........I had another drive like it liying around so the idea popped in my head that i could swap the circuit boards and see if that let my get my precious data off of it .

I swapped the boards out and reinstalled the harddrive no clunk clunk clunk but then the bios refused to detect it so i went thou the basics again i reseated the ide cable rechecked the slave master setting nothing :-/ i tried another ide cable and it worked .. i started to copy the data off of it and every once and a while it would go clunk and spin down and back up again making my heart stop every time but i finally managed to get all the stuff off of it but i forgot to back up my IE favorites :-/ but it could have been WAY worse .. that will teach me to go risk every thing for a little speed boost.............. or maybe it wont :evil grin: ...............

 

well, they sat if it ain't broke don't fix it


but that wouldn't be ant fun would it??

 

I found out the hard way that hard drives DO fail. New 200 gig WD drive, less than a month old. Didn't lose anything critical, but did lose a lot of the old time radio shows I collect; didn't have all of them backed up to CD. WD was great about replacing it under warranty, but that doesn't get you your data back. For critical data/files/programs that you can't afford to lose, NOTHING beats a stack of CDs.

 

except for DVD's caue they just hold more stuff....

 

My HDD is getting worryingly old now... I fear for its health!

 

True. Same philosophy, better media.

 

Hey Goldy, exactly, how old is it? I'd like to know so I know when to start thinking of replacing mine.
Thanx

 

I've had similar experiences from copying stuff from my old 20gig to a new 160gig. Ended up losing everything due to some stupidity (the computers, not mine, i assure you). Wasn't too bad though because all the things I had my friends also had due to copying at LAN's. It was simply a matter of time before I went to the next LAN.

As for storing media, I've found floppy discs to be extremely nice when you stick them to the refrigerator with a magnet

 

its about 3 years old...

 

cool, I guess that gives me about another year and a half, this PC was only used by the previous owner for about 10 months, then it was down for 3 years. I've had it up & going since 11/04.
Thanx goldy

 

Yould think that a smaller stripe size whould be best ( one file has a better chance of being on more then one drive ) But apperantly it takes longer for the RAID adapter to compute all the requierd spliting of the files and sutch I found this little utility 512K stripes seem to be the best for me ....

 

Thanks Ace I'll check it out!! I'll keep you posted
Herb

 

Looks like 64kb is best for mine.... hmm looks like I see a nuke and pave in my future ( all of worth on puter is on dvd so i'll just go for it!) LOL

 

Yea iv heard that 64Kb is the best on average .......