Disk Error Disappeared - How ??

[Malam]

I have a Hitachi 1Tb drive that was part of a Raid 1 backup. I was running Vista until this afternoon and the drive was reported as faulty since last week. I could not read or format the drive. Disk Check reported errors and won't run. Then tonight, I installed Windows 7. The drive still came up unreadable, but Windows 7 gave me the option of formatting the drive. The drive has been formatted, errors checked, and its ok again. How ? What happened ? Does Windows 7 have adifferent reading protocol ?

[DenisS]

its possible that the drive coppied the faulty partition of another drive. when you formated it, the partition was created again without any errors, just like it should be.

[_dangtx_]

just to be sure, drop hdtune in there and look for yellow/red.

[Malam]

That makes sense. Thanks. I will run HDTUNE later tonight.

An Update - ran the error scan from hdtune - all fields were green - no errors. However, windows error pop-up "Windows detected a hard disk problem " suggests a disk failure. The disk is part of a two disk JBOD raid 1 Vantec MX enclosure. I may have to take the two disks out and test them independently.

[_dangtx_]

you have to do that. or something in between, like the controller board, or the cord in between is bad.

[frontier204]

If you're going to be separating the drives to check them anyway, use a different set of cables / a different SATA port in case that's the issue.

[Malam]

It didn't take long - Windows 7 reported disk error too. During post, the Device on my Port 6 (Which is the Raid unit) was reported as Bad. I removed the two drives, reformatted them and checked them for errors - no errors. I also have a Hard Drive docking station - with both drives docked and reading ok. I left the drives running in the docking station for the day - all ok. I reinstalled the drives into the NexStar MX 400 raid enclosure one more time. The eSATA Portduring post, reported the device was bad - again. I connected the MX 400 using the USB connection and the drives were shown ok. The two units are running ok.
I am now left with two possible sources for the error 1) either the eSATA hardware in the MX 400 or 2) the eSATA Port on my motherboard is having problem with a Raid arrangement.

Or what else ?? My other choice is to install the two drives internally and configure them with the motherboard controller for Raid. Any suggestions please.
Thanks.

[Malam]

I have installed the two drives as a Raid1 set using the Marvell Controller on my motherboard and the system is running fine. My conclusion is that the Vantec MX400 was faulty. Thanks for your help guys.