4 x 1TB HDD Problems...

[KapteinFruit]

Hi, I got 4 of the exact same type of 1TB HDDs. (ST31000525SV) After the previous owner tried RAIDing two of them it would not work. When I got them, I put them in my PC, but something weird is happening. I get one disk up that fails to work. It says something about an I/O error causing it. The disk that comes up besides the two other ones, show as 1,8TB as if they were still in RAID. How can I fix this issue? It's bugging me, I've been up all night trying to figure this out... Thanks in advance!

 

[YouWhat]

if you haven't raid enbled on your motherboard, then you need to delete the partition information from the disks to wipe out the raid data that would be stored on them.

If windows disk manager doesn't do the job, then you need to get technical and use DiskPart from the command prompt, if you need help with this, I will be on a bit later and will guide you through it.

 

[KapteinFruit]

if you haven't raid enbled on your motherboard, then you need to delete the partition information from the disks to wipe out the raid data that would be stored on them.

If windows disk manager doesn't do the job, then you need to get technical and use DiskPart from the command prompt, if you need help with this, I will be on a bit later and will guide you through it.

Thanks for the willingness. I got up this morning and I thought, hey, I only tried quick frag in disk manager (Which did not work), so why not try a proper formatting? So far it seems to work, as it is formatting. Not sure if it will help with the fourth disk that says it's 1.8TB tho.

By the way, is it worth to put all the four drives in RAID 0? I don't really have any important information so if the RAID array gets corrupt, it really doesn't matter. Or maybe I should go RAID 10 anyway? Tell me what you think.

 

[YouWhat]

The disk that says 1.8TB will more than likely be the master drive of the raid your friend setup, which is why it thinks its that size, as it still thinks its in a raid array, just delete the partitions and format and it should be good.

As for raid 0, yes it would benefit you slightly unless it is in use for large file transfers, which is where it will then exceed the normal transfer rates (if it is in stripe opposed to spanning), as it will be accessing the various bits of files across all the drives at once instead of off a single drive, so it will maximize all of the drives abilities.

If you wanted to do a backup / more of a redundant system, then use raid 5 as this will maximise the capacity as well ass having a backup incase a drive fails.

 

[KapteinFruit]

The disk that says 1.8TB will more than likely be the master drive of the raid your friend setup, which is why it thinks its that size, as it still thinks its in a raid array, just delete the partitions and format and it should be good.

As for raid 0, yes it would benefit you slightly unless it is in use for large file transfers, which is where it will then exceed the normal transfer rates (if it is in stripe opposed to spanning), as it will be accessing the various bits of files across all the drives at once instead of off a single drive, so it will maximize all of the drives abilities.

If you wanted to do a backup / more of a redundant system, then use raid 5 as this will maximise the capacity as well ass having a backup incase a drive fails.

You know what, I tried a lot of different things, but honestly I am very green when it comes to this type of stuff. I tried to delete partitions through Disk Management and something named MiniTool Partition Wizard, but nothing helped. Thanks for your help, but I lucked out. Called the guy I bought all of them from, and he said I could just come and switch it with another one. I lucked out I guess. Got a feeling the disk got bad, or I have to connect it to my friends PC where the RAID was created. But I won't have to. THANKS!

 

[YouWhat]

Glad you getting it sorted out