[Ham-Computers] SATA HD failures on Promise RAID 1 controller

[Mike D.]

ASUS A7V Deluxe MB
Windows XP Pro

About a year ago I had two Maxtor 250 GB SATA drives fail in RAID 1 on the
Promise PDC20378 controller of an ASUS A7V Deluxe MB. I replaced both failed
drives with Seagate 250 GB SATA drives. Now, it appears one of the Seagate
drives failed--upon reboot I'm getting the disk failure error message (one
drive failed). I don't understand why hard drives on this motherboard are
experiencing such a high failure rate. However, I suspect the Promise RAID
controller is to blame. I installed the most recent driver when I replaced
both drives.

Should I abandon RAID and just use one hard drive? My system is working okay
otherwise, even with the failed hard drive message. If I decide to remove
the failed drive and just use the one good drive, how do I go about doing
this? I assume I can do this without having to reload the operating system,
applications and data?

If I purchase a new Seagate 250 GB SATA drive, can I replace the failed
drive without having to reload the operating system, applications and data?
The instructions don't go into detail on this, but indicates it's possible.

Thank you. 

73 de Mike, N9BOR
A-1, FISTS, JARL A-1, SMC
http://www.n9bor.us
http://www.k9ya.org

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