OT: Computer Help

[Bert 49]

Hopefully someone can nudge me in the right direction.  I have a 8 Bay Sans Digital Esata Tower.  This one to be exact:

 

http://www.sansdigital.com/towerraid/tr8mb.html

 

It is connected to the computer via a rocketraid 642l sata controller

 

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_rr600-overview.htm

 

The problem I have is the top four drives start to disappear.  The unit flashes through the boot sequence (basically running each drive) and then either repeats or finds some or all of the drives.  It seems to happen mostly when the drives are in use.  I am not sure how to troubleshoot the issues as it could be cables, the card, the unit itself, etc.  Is there something in the windows event logs that should tell me where the malfunction is?  I see kernel errors but not sure what that means or if that's actually the issue.  Any advice would be appreciated.

[legallink 187]

I don't know how much help this forum will be, as your issues appear to be unit specific.  However, as I'm sure you know, to determine point of failure, you always try to isolate different points.  Aka, test each drive separately, test your raid controller separately.

 

My guesses would be that it is either the raid controller, or more likely, one of the esata ports or the embedded PCI adapter on the enclosure, and less likely to be a cable issue. 

 

If the cable is failing, that should be an easy test, as you can just swap the 2 cables.  To test the raid controller, you could simply switch which ports the esata cables are plugged into on the raid controller and see if it is still the same 4 drives failing, or a different 4.  Continue trying to isolate the problem in different scenarios.

[Bert 49]

This was actually more help then you realized and I apologize I didn't thank you sooner, kept thinking I'd remember while on the computer. I didn't really think too much about trying to isolate the issue.  The only problem is that the issue is so intermittent.  

I replaced the RAID card but am still having issues I had previously replaced the esata cables.  Using your advice it seems to be some kind of issue with the eight bay tower itself.  I suspect the top half (slots 1-4) and am currently using the bottom half only.  Trying to determine if I can make it crash.  Most of the system critical information is on the bottom four drives anyway.  Now off to see if I can make it crash.