lost hardrive

[TheCozz]

ok, i have a core 2 duo e6600
bfg 680i mobo
xfx 8800xts vid
2x 75 gb 10000rpm raptors in raid 0

ok everything was up and running fine until
i tried installing system mechanic 6 with has kaspersky anti virus and firewall in it
worked fine on my last pc
but it would not install on this pc due to the nvidia control panel, so i unistalled the control panel and then installed sys mech 6 , seemed to go fine untill i rebooted to finish the install, it started running a scan then screen went blue
and started dumping memory,
i restarted pc before dump was complete, it refuses to reboot now, and one of the raptors are not recognized at all? is that drive lost forever or can i somehow recover it so i can reset up with out sys mech 6?
So far when entering raid set up only sees one drive, and i cant even get win xp to load onto that drive?

[123456]

Try reseating the RAM, maybe? Since it's a memory dump...

[Paul Komski]

one of the raptors are not recognized at all
You almost certainly have broken the RAID and the unrecognisable drive is probably toast. Check/Swap Cables and connectors (data and power) and run the manufacturer's HDD diagnostics.

[TheCozz]

ok, thanks will try re seating ram first on the off chance that works, if not where do i find the manufacturers HDD diagnostics?

[PrntRhd]

Start with the links here:
http://www.pcguide.com/vb/showthread.php?t=29081

[TheCozz]

ok further i also tried installing them in another computer my old one, whether in raid 0 or as seperate drives they are both recognized in the in the bios but only is recognized when installing win xp, if this helps at all in the diagnosis?

[Paul Komski]

they are both recognized in the in the bios but only is recognized when installing win xp
how does that quote relate to the other one
So far when entering raid set up only sees one drive, and i cant even get win xp to load onto that drive
If you are trying to install to a RAID array then you will need to have first configured an appropriate array by adding both drives to it and then use F6 to install the RAID drivers at the start of the WinXP setup. If you dont want the array then delete the drives from the array and use them as non-raid/normal HDDs; that may take a few BIOS setup edits to get things setup correctly.

[TheCozz]

Ok Thanks for the help. Before reinstalling the drives into the above mentioned PC i reseated the RAM. It seemed to do the trick at least for recognizing the drive. However, i had to completely reinstall windows and start fresh. But at least i didn't loose the drive.
My next thread will be why sys mech 6 causes this issue and waht virus program i can trust to not do this.LOL
Thanks Again

[Paul Komski]

I personally don't like tweaking utilities such as system mechanic. One needs to ask why the nvidia control panel didn't like it particularly if it was for maintaining any raid arrays.

I doubt very much that the antivirus has affected anything but you can swap over to AVG and another personal firewall if you so desire.

FYI Memory dumps can be caused by software as much as by dodgy hardware and don't specifically indicate a problem with the RAM.

Also the reason that the BIOS sees two drives but Windows installation only sees one when they are in an array is because an array only appears to the system as a single "volume"; that is normal.

[TheCozz]

yes an array only sees as a single volume but in this case it only saw half the capacity it should have. It was 2x 74 gb stripping array so should have seen 138gb total as it did on initial install, but after this issues was only seeing 74gb. Any it is fixed now.
I wonder though if i can install the anti virus part of system mechanic only wich is kaspersky anti virus with out the tweaking software? I am afraid to try takes so long to reinstall every thing.

[Paul Komski]

If you get things going right then make an image file of your system prior to tinkering; then you can restore it and go back in time.

If the capacity of the array was only 74gb and a valid array was visible it must have been RAID-1 and not RAID-0 - otherwise RAID was not enabled and just one drive was being detected - possibly as an IDE device and not as an array. In other words one drive in an incomplete array and one drive not assigned to RAID at all or both as RAID-1.