system hangs - Vista 64/Asus P5K Premium/Intel RAID10

I built a Q6600 / P5K premium based system (uses the ICH9R) a couple weeks ago and am finally getting around to using it. I've got 8GB of RAM and 4 Seagate 750GB SATA drives configured as RAID 10. Unfortunately it hangs after 4-6 hours and the event log is indicating that iaStor(0) is timing out.

I've installed the latest Intel RAID driver when I installed Vista. I am reading that lots of people are having problems with Intel RAID.

Does it REALLY work or should I bail on the RAID and make the SATA look like 4 IDE drives -- reinstalling everything?

It's currently limping along rebuilding one of the drives as I type. It's around 20% and it hung once around 10% already.

I had really hoped to use the RAID, but I (and my wife) are running out of patience.


Thanks.

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Originally Posted by rwm63

I am reading that lots of people are having problems with Intel RAID.

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Specificaly with Vista64, with Vista or with any OS? I've certainly not heard the latter.

/Googles

Eew. Vista, I assume you meant. That sounds indicative of naff drivers. Some suggestions are that it only occurs with certain RAID combos, so what about giving up on 10 & instead setting up two pairs of drives, each with a matrix of one RAID 1 & one RAID 0?

I feel for you, that sounds very familiar. Had similar issues.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...08&postcount=2

So it might just be the mobo?

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Originally Posted by mroz

So it might just be the mobo?

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I have the exact same parts in a IP35 Pro now and its working so far. Yet to setup the raid, but yes the premium, some of them at least have issues.

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Originally Posted by mroz

so what about giving up on 10 & instead setting up two pairs of drives, each with a matrix of one RAID 1 & one RAID 0?

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pfft go for 4 disk raid 5 set. you will never look back

What board is it? Up to date BIOS?

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Originally Posted by alsenior

pfft go for 4 disk raid 5 set. you will never look back

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I'd be interested to know your reasons?

I'd be concerned about performance when copying between two partitions on the single set. That's why I'd like two physically distinct sets, assuming usage patterns mean intensive disk ops will often involves such a use case.

Is there any reason to believe that RAID 0, 1, or 5 would work any better?

BIOS and driver are both up to date.

If it's the mobo, no; that seems to involve lots of SATA issues including non RAID. OTOH if it's related to Vista drivers, the implication I found was that it might only be an issue when different RAID strategies are overlaid, so 0, 1 & 5 might be okay. I have no firm facts however - hmm, maybe I should make that my sig.

After spending out on such nice components, I would finish the rig off properly and fit an areca raid controller instead. They are PCI-E 8x but should work fine at 4x in the second PCI-E slot. 4x is still 1GB/s

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Originally Posted by shaithis

After spending out on such nice components, I would finish the rig off properly and fit an areca raid controller instead. They are PCI-E 8x but should work fine at 4x in the second PCI-E slot. 4x is still 1GB/s

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Lazy I know, but i have to go out in a moment (/grumbles... & miss my Q6600 G0 delivery) - do you have any urls for reviews, stats, cheap suppliers etc? It would be a reason for me to go with a board with two PCI-E 16x slots. Thanks.

My rigs semi similar but I keep getting BSOD, completely fresh install as well, only thing in the logs is the IaStor thing

Regarding getting this system to work with a PCI-e RAID controller...

Can I plug in the board, move the drives over to it and power up? (I'm trying to avoid reloading all of the software and data)

I sent Intel a note regarding this. I saw that there was a 7.6 version of the software that was out within the last couple weeks and wanted to know if it addressed the issue. The very quick response was "not specifically but it maybe." In reality, it did not. They sent me a link to their site which said to upgrade to 7.5 or to revert to IDE.

Thanks.

Revert to IDE, nice, I'll be reinstalling again 2nite then, what be the point of this being mainstream if its not bloody working?

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Originally Posted by rwm63

Can I plug in the board, move the drives over to it and power up? (I'm trying to avoid reloading all of the software and data)

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I'd guess if you're lucky you might be able to plug in the board, boot up, install drivers, power down, move the drives over & then power up. That'd be my first try at any rate, assuming the system's stable enough to get away with the first half of that.

It should be stable enough to install new drivers. At times it runs for 6+ hours without a problem.

I was reading in another forum that people are seeing bad SATA cables (and one of the posts explicitly referred to the ones that came with ASUS boards). The event viewer doesn't seem to give me any clue as to which drive (if any specific one) is giving me problems.

Does it make sense to spend a few dollars on 4 new cables? Or is this not likely a cable issue? I'm also concerned that even if it is a cable issue, that swapping 4 new cables in might have me swapping in 3 good ones and one bad one.

I tried about 8 different cables, still came back with Iastor.sys errors.

I bit this bullet this afternoon and blew away my RAID and now have 4 IDE drives. I'm very disappointed.

A couple questions:
--Can I still go in the BIOS and enable AHCI mode and just boot up the system? I assume I should get some performance increase, but I'm not sure if it is asking for trouble since the Intel note specifically says "IDE".

--Can anyone recommend some software that can be configured to schedule full/incremental backups of my C (and D) drive to my now floundering E, and F drives?

Thanks for all your help.

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Originally Posted by rwm63

--Can I still go in the BIOS and enable AHCI mode and just boot up the system? I assume I should get some performance increase, but I'm not sure if it is asking for trouble since the Intel note specifically says "IDE".

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If you don't mind chancing the latter point, it should work if the drivers are already installed, which they might be given you were using RAID - though I'm not at all certain.

However if the drivers aren't installed & the system won't boot, you could try moving your boot drive to the JMicron controller, booting & shuting down, enabling AHCI on the Intel controller & rebooting, allowing Vista to install the drivers; then finally shutdown, move the boot drive back & reboot.

make sure your on the latest BIOS and latest drivers, did this on mine yesterday and its been fine allnight throwing ~500gb around the disks,...