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Losing disks and my sanity


CharleyVarrick

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CharleyVarrick

My main server is repeatedly losing disk drives. Getting email from StableBit DrivePool that one or more disks are missing on Server.

When this happens, DrivePool shows the disk greyed out and missing. StableBit Scanner doesn't show it, nor Windows Explorer nor Windows disk management. Its plain gone!

 

If I restart the computer, it will show up again, but will disappear again eventually. This is happening with 1-4 year old drives, and right now with a brand new drive (1 hour use). I have already replaced sata cables, tried switching power cable.

 

I have about 10 hard drives pulled aside that behaved like this in the last 18 months or so. This started when I started using StableBit DrivePool/Scanner and also added a 4 ports sata expansion card. Please note that the disappearing drives occur as much when connected to expansion card as to m/b ports.

 

What could cause this, apart from the drives themselves, the sata and power cables?

 

PS: Drives are mostly Western Digital, but I recently tried Seagate 8tb, as is the case with the brand new one that disapeared within an hour of use.

PPS: of the 10 hdd that went MiA on me, about 6 did so on my main server, and maybe 4 on my secondary server.

Edited by jlr19
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PenkethBoy

have you checked windows (which version) event viewer for any more info - i suspect you should see errors when the disks disappear

 

as this has been going on for sometime - i doubt its the disks as it appears to be happening too often to multiple disks - if i understood your post

 

could be a driver crash - i assume you have the latest drivers for your controllers (what are you using?)

 

could be a hardware problem with the pc?

 

is the power supply sufficient - i.e. over spec for your needs

 

can you pull the sata card and run without it for a period as a test - could be a conflict with your m/b and or drivers

 

if you move an affected drive to another pc does it exhibit the same behaviour?

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CharleyVarrick

IO Crest 4 Port SATA III PCI-e 2.0 x1 Controller Card Marvell Non-Raid with Low Profile Bracket SI-PEX40064 https://www.amazon.c...a_ICAkzbW5RWZSX

 

For driver, I let DriverBooster find it for me.

Again, drives have disappeared even when connected straight to m/b (as is the case right now).

 

PSU is ThermalTake TR2 600w

The server has 1 ssd and 7 hdd (4x WD green, 1x WD Blue, and 2 Seagate).

No pci devices apart from sata expansion card.

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CharleyVarrick

Oh, and Hi PenkethBoy, btw :)

Win7 x64 Ultimate (french canada): I am not to good (I suck) at hunting errors down in Windows, can you point me in the general direction?

 

Edit: I might have found it, in Windows log, under system, about 8 red exclamation mark error telling that hard disk 0 is not ready for access

Also about 30 yellow triangle warnings, mostly about error detected on pagefile job, 1 about unable to empty transaction log:damaged might have occured,

Edited by jlr19
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CharleyVarrick

Disk 0 is the WD blue (1 year old) that disappeared earlier, that I replaced with the Seagate 8tb about 2 hours ago.

The disk number is determined by the sata port in use, right (?). In the past, to try to pinpoint the source of the issue, I have tried different sata ports, on the m/b and the expansion card (to no definitve conclusion).

 

Newb question: I tend to think my recurring issues started about when I installed the expansion card, but could it have ill effect on drives that are connected on the motherboard itself?

Edited by jlr19
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CharleyVarrick

 

can you pull the sata card and run without it for a period as a test - could be a conflict with your m/b and or drivers

Doing that means one of my two pools needs to go offline. For a few hours, I suppose I could manage, but I'd prefer not to if at all possible.

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PenkethBoy

it could well be a conflict between the m/b sata chip and the sata card - hence why as a test removing it and running for a day or two might confirm or not the issue is related to the card - not ideal but would help diagnose

 

is your m/b sata chip also by Marvell and is it the same version by chance as the card

  • Chipset: Marvell 88SE9215
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CharleyVarrick

Doing that means one of my two pools needs to go offline. For a few hours, I suppose I could manage, but I'd prefer not to if at all possible.

Then again, I already have one pool down :rolleyes:

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CharleyVarrick

is your m/b sata chip also by Marvell and is it the same version by chance as the card

  • Chipset: Marvell 88SE9215

 

M/b is Asus asus p8b75-m/csm

according to their website its an Intel B75 chipset 

 

(This is klingon to me)

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CharleyVarrick

ok - check on the ASUS site that you have the latest m/b drivers for m/d loaded  - i would disable(uninstall) the driver software you are using and use the official m/b drivers

 

https://www.asus.com/us/Motherboards/P8B75MCSM/HelpDesk_Download/

 

chipset and sata as a start

Should I remove the sata card before?

Edited by jlr19
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CharleyVarrick

I did remove the sata card

Oddly enough, I am unable to install the sata driver, it barely starts then stop with an error message that this platform is not supported.

 

In device manager, under storage controller, I had a Marvell 6g controller and Covecube disk enumerator, now I have only the later showing

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CharleyVarrick

you did download the win 7 64 bit sata driver for you board?

yes

also swapped sata cable's port, as this sometimes gets Windows "thinking". Not today.

Edited by jlr19
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CharleyVarrick

In device mgr, under storage controllers, only Covecube disk enumerator, and no unknow/problem device

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CharleyVarrick

I would reinstall windows, but I'd like to be more sure it would fix it.

 

I have an extra 8tb brand new drive, I will try installing that one in place of the invisible one. 

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PenkethBoy

ok - if the m/b sata drivers wont install then just run the machine for a day or so as is and see if you get anymore errors or disks go missing

 

not sure how often it happens

 

did you try one of the disks in another machine to see if they work ok?

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PenkethBoy

we could delete the m/b sata drivers in control panel and let windows find them again - but want to leave that for later - usually that works fine but dont want to get too drastic yet :)

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CharleyVarrick

we could delete the m/b sata drivers in control panel and let windows find them again - but want to leave that for later - usually that works fine but dont want to get too drastic yet :)

In Device manager, I have a branch called storage controllers, showing (now) only Covecube Disk Enumerator (before installing the chipset driver, there was a Marvell 6gps controller also there)

 

There is another Device mgr branch called IDE/ATA/ATAPI controllers, this one has 6 entries:

2x ATA channel0,

2x ATA channel1

1x Intel R Series C216 chipset family 2 ports serial ata storage controller 1E08

1x Intel R Series C216 chipset family 4 ports serial ata storage controller 1E00

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PenkethBoy

those are you m/b sata controllers  - for it looks like 6 physical ports

 

but lets see if you get any more disks disappear first etc before we delete the drivers etc

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