This'll be the first blog post I've done and I'll be doing this more and more often.

The main reason why I thought about doing a blog (not to be conceited), but most people I know feel I do alot during a day's work or a day's play.

This blog pretty much shows everyone that I'm more of a home-body and that I really don't do anything at all.



Thursday just started so I'll talk about the beginning of this week.

Most everyone knows that I've been having computer problems for the past week or so. Monday was no exception. After reinstalling Windows and tweaking my system to perfection. I noticed that the RAID-0 array would all of the sudden make a loud ping and lock my whole system up. Only thing that I know about loud hard drive noises is that when they happen, it usually mean the Hdds gonna die and you're gonna have to replace'em.

I'm thinking to myself "There's no way in hell that i could be dying". But the little fact is still present.
Someone suggested to me that I should check for Medley RAID driver and BIOS updates. Something I should have thought of from the beginning.

Going to Silicon Image's main page revealed that there was an update and it was dated 10/10/03, so I'm in luck.

I download appropriate .bin files and flash utilities. I format a never used floppy with XP and move the files over to the floppy.

I restart the computer.

When the computer starts reading the floppy I realized that it was making alot more noise then usual, but insisting to myself that I haven't used the a:/ in a loooong time I shrugged it off.

Now I'm in at the DOS prompt a:/

I start the flash utility updflash.exe, along with selecting the actual update file r3024.bin.
Then it asks,
"Select which Medley RAID you want to flash".

I choose 0680 and the flash process begins.
All the while the floppy drive is making an abnormal amount of noise.

During the flash I get a prompt stating,
"Corrupt or invalid data. (R)etry, (F)ail, (A)bort"
All that was going through my head was the fact that "The flash failed and I just ruined my RAID card".
Maybe I could just restart the computer and reflash it.

Upon restarting, after the computer initializes IDE devices, the computer just locks up when it tries to initialize the RAID card. It won't get into the a:/ prompt.

When I remove the card the computer will load normally on my spare hdd. Last thing going through my head was the fact I had about 50gigs of data I just moved from a larger drive back to the RAID array. 50gigs of unsaved data.

Only 1 thing I could do at 10pm. Call Richard Bendel and see if I could borrow his Medley 0680 RAID card just to see if my data was recoverable.

I used the "Good RAID" card to test if the data was there and sure enough the OS loaded correctly and I didn't lose a byte. I now know I can back-up all my data.

But, there's still the problem of not having a functioning RAID card. All I know is that the flash failed and that if the BIOS on the card was reset or reflashed it would definately work.

I started coming up with a plan to use the "Good" card to load up and try to flash the "Bad" one.
First I tried with both cards in, it would read the "Good" card and freeze on the "Bad" one.
I tried with just the "Good" card and go through the flash options of erasing the BIOS", but there was a dilemma.
How the hell am I gonna get the "Bad" card to initialize if it keeps freezing during boot-up?
Only one thing I thought of, which was slightly radical for a repair situtation.

"Remove the "Good" card and replace it with the "Bad" card in the Flash option menu, while power is still "ON".
eek.

I tried it 3 times and the computer kept locking up.
I tried it one last time and the words came across the screen...
"BIOS erased successfully"

I shut power off, and reseated the "Bad" card better and powered on.

It actually initialized the card and booted to a:/
I reflashed the card (with a known good floppy disk) and this time the drive didn't make as much noise and the flash actually worked.

Afterwards I checked to see if Rich's card still worked (it did thank goodness) and ran through a couple of system tools to ensure the drive wasn't corrupted or harmed (which they weren't). And everything worked out fine.

The whole fiasco took from 10pm to 2am to finish.

"Final Thoughts"

I learned a valuable lesson that day.

"Make sure the floppy disk you use is good and working"
before you flash any kind of BIOS, be it your firmware on a DVD-RW or a mainboard BIOS or a RAID card.