Why do EIDE drives disappear from the IDE RAID array or system after a short period of error-free operation?
Affected drives: • WD EIDE drives with capacities between 40GB & 120GB. • WD EIDE drives with greater than 120GB capacity with a date earlier than 3/25/03. Problem: WD EIDE drives are dropped from an IDE RAID array or system after several days or weeks of error-free operation. Solution: The problem is a result of a feature that reduces idle acoustic noise in desktop drives. This feature may cause a timeout likely (though not exclusively) in an IDE RAID environment. To disable the feature, you can run a simple Western Digital utility to turn off a single bit in the drives run-time configuration. Disabling of this feature will NOT impact normal system operations. No firmware or hardware changes are required. • IDE Upgrade Utility (Non-3Ware controller cards) For all configurations other than 3Ware controller cards, download the IDE Upgrade Utility for the Desktop PC. • 3Ware controller cards If you are using one or more 3Ware controller cards in an IDE RAID configuration, download the ID
