"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D."

[sansemiano]

Recently my rig has begun to spit out in the system event-log the following messages:

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk1\D."

or

"The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk0\D."

All this with eventID: 11.

Everything works fine; checkdisk does not find anything irregular. Sata-cables are fixed. Temps are not too high.

The only application that is bothered by this is Acronis True Image Home. When the system is in this state it's impossible to make an image. True Image just stops with an error message saying something about 'error writing file' (error 40003). At the same time it's perfectly possible to write a simple txt-file with Notepad on the same partition True Image wants to write it's image.

Sometimes a reboot helps to solve it for a while. Restoring an older image did help for a while. Re-installing the nVidia storage drivers did not help. The problem seems to stay.

Anyone having any idea what is going here and how to get rid of it?

[Tabvla]

My first suspect would be the SATA cables.

SATA cables prior to 2005 and even the cheaper ones available today are a real pain-in-the-butt in that they had to be of a specific length and could not at any time be bent.

Good quality SATA cables manufactured within the past 18 months are much more robust and much less vulnerable to data loss.

The reason that I am suspecting the cables is that you can Read/Write a simple .txt file without any problems. Windows has a lot of built-in redundancy in the way it handles data files. Any data file can literally have hundreds of errors but will still be perfectly usable without any impact on the user.

Acronis deals with data in a different way - specifically on a bit-by-bit basis. Therefore if there is just a single byte that is incorrect, ATI will become hysterical and throw its toys out the pram.

A primary suspect for this type of behaviour would be the SATA data cable.

And if I am wrong.... let me apolgise in advance. But SATA cables are cheap and if your cables are old or of a poor quality then it would be a good idea to replace them with top-quality cables - whether or not this solves the ATI problem.

[sansemiano]

thanks for your reaction. the cable-solution is also mentioned in the microsoft-help. they suggest a loose cable, but that is very unlikely.

i used the sata-cables that came with my asus a8n-sli premium mobo. they are in use for a year now. i have no idea if they are high- or low-quality. they are however bend and zip-tied together.

there are still a few spare-cables in the box. if i mount those and the problem stays away for another year then the cables are the culprit.

[seekforever]

My only validate problem with TI was caused by SATA cables and there was no indication anything was wrong, other than event log entries.

Both the duds came with my Asus motherboard.

It isn't overly surprising that TI would pickup the problem given the large amount of data it handles when doing its job.

[Tabvla]

There should be a cruel and painful punishment for PC assemblers that bend and zip-tie SATA cables ....... for male assemblers the kind of punishment should make you look like this ... :wacko:

[sansemiano]

just replaced all 3 sata-cables (system disk, data disk and removable backup disk).

during boot the eventlog still shows three eventid:11 entries pointing to a problem with disk 0 (system disk). at the moment ATI is willing to image data.

so, i'm not convinced yet, but we'll see what happens the coming days. :)

btw, what is a good brand for sata-cables in various lengths?

[Tabvla]

Adaptec or Belkin

[sansemiano]

how about AC Ryan? is that a good brand for these sata-cables?

[Tabvla]

Have never come across that brand so cannot comment. Sorry.

[GianniC]

I have had two times the Event ID 11 error in my PC.
I changed SATA cables with no luck.
The first time the culprit was the disk: it did not pass the diagnostic and I changed it.
The second time the culprit was the controller: cables changed, disk ok; everything worked fine again after changing the controller.
By the way, in both cases I had troubles copying lots of files or huge files from system disk to data disk: cannot copy error, slow copy or blue screen of death.
I suppose you can easily loose data if the error persists.:(

[Tabvla]

Hi GianniC, welcome to the Forum ;D

-{ Quote: "...The first time the culprit was the disk: it did not pass the diagnostic and I changed it..." }-
Could you provide details of what the diagnostic reported. Also which diagnostic were you using?

-{ Quote: "...The second time the culprit was the controller: cables changed disk ok; everything worked fine again after changing the controller..." }-
Did you change the cables and the controller at the same time or separately?

-{ Quote: "...I had troubles copying lots of files or huge files from system disk to data disk..." }-
Did you only have problems when copying files from System disk to Data disk or did you have problems at other times also?

[sansemiano]

just tried ati. sofar so good after 1 day 2 hours up-time.

[GianniC]

---------------------------------------------
1)...Could you provide details of what the diagnostic reported. Also which diagnostic were you using?...
---------------------------------------------

The motherboard was an ABIT IC7-G.
The system disk was a Western Digital Raptor 70GB.
The disk was connected to the Intel ICH5R controller built in the Southbridge of the MOBO.
The system was very slow and unusable.
BSOD happend three times a day.

First I checked the RAM with MemTest86 3.0.
Then I replaced the SATA cables.
At last, I used the diagnostic tool provided by the disk manifacturer: DataLifeGuard Diagnostic 5.0.4F (on floppy)
The error was "SMART data not readable" or something like that. The meaning was "troubles with the phisical controller embedded on the disk". Western Digital Support told that disk was defective.

---------------------------------------------
2)...Did you change the cables and the cotroller at the same time or separately?...
3)...Did you only have problems when copying files from System disk to Data disk or did you have problems at other times also?...
---------------------------------------------

The second trouble occurred on a motherboard of the same model and a disk of the same model.
The system has been working fine for 2 years, when I moved the system disk to the SI312R controller embedded on the MOBO: I wanted to mirror the data disk using a RAID1 configuration on the ICH5R controller.

After upgrading the hardware, I start getting random BSOD, usually after resuming from hybernation or copying my 3000 2MB photos between system and data disks.
BSOD came with the Event ID 11 in system log.

I first upgraded SI3112 and ICH5R drivers.
After upgrading, instead of BSOD, I start getting, in system log, severe errors in SI3112 driver and other nice error messages, all speaking about data loss.

At this point I checked the RAM.
Then I replaced all SATA cables on ALL disks.
Later I launched DataLifeguard on ALL disks (they were all WD). No trouble was reported.

I went back to the old configuration (no RAID) and everything worked fine if and only if my system disk (WD Raptor) was connected to the ICH5R controller. That disk does not work fine on the SI3112 of my MOBO (checked on both ports).

At this point, nights of work and a month later, sick and tired enough with my troubles, I decided to buy a new controller.
I spent my 25€ to buy another SI3112 Sata Raid controller, I put it into an empty PCI slot, connected the system disk to it and all errors disappeared.

---------------------------------------------
...Interesting history. What else?...
---------------------------------------------

At this point I restored the system disk image, taken with TI 9.0 before doing the hardware upgrade.
My system was ok, upgraded, with no trace of data loss on disks.
Thanks Acronis ;D

[seekforever]

I think it is better to use memtest86+ available from www.memtest.org - the latest version is 1.65 - rather than memtest86 which has not been updated since Nov 2004.

[Tabvla]

Thanks for the detailed post.

An interesting history. Also a rather unusual solution. One to make a mental note of...

:)

[sansemiano]

and another ati attempt and now the eventlog is flooded again with eventid:11 error-messages.

copying 381 jpeg images for a total of 185Mb to the same dir as where ati wants to wright it's image is no problem.

[Menorcaman]

Hello sansemiano,

I agree with seekforever. Download <Memtest86+ v1.65> (http://www.memtest.org/) and run it for a few hours (preferably overnight). There should be zero errors reported.

Regards

[sansemiano]

and now with a cold machine just awaked from 9 hours standby time ati works flawlessly.

doesn't look like failing sata-cables.

i'll test the machine with memtest86+ v1.65.

what is the theory behind testing the memory? is the ram in my rig failing when flooded with the huge amounts of data ati generates?

[bodgy]

A heat problem perhaps! It might be that if your PS is marginal in its ability to provide relatively noise free power or to maintain current output, you are suffering from power degredation as the PS gets warm.

It might be worth, substituting the power supply if possible. Dodgy power will cause all sorts of random problems.

Do you have access to a multimeter or voltmeter?

Colin

[seekforever]

-{ Quote: "and now with a cold machine just awaked from 9 hours standby time ati works flawlessly.

doesn't look like failing sata-cables.

i'll test the machine with memtest86+ v1.65.

what is the theory behind testing the memory? is the ram in my rig failing when flooded with the huge amounts of data ati generates?" }-

Memory wouldn't be my first guess for your particular symptom but replacing the cables didn't help so you are in a process of elimination.

Virtually everything goes through memory and a bad memory location can cause strange problems. In the case of TI, all of the gigabytes of data are being read into memory, compressed and formatted and then written out of memory to the device.

bodgy's suggestion about heat and power supply is another and you may well have a component that is marginal and heat sensitive. Electronic components that have not failed "hard" are very often sensitive to heat such that they will work only in a specific temperature range or vica-versa. This often is caused by a microscopic break in a chip bonding wire within the encapsulation.

Power supplys are another known cause of intermittent problems. Typically the voltage gets a bit low on the 5 or 3.3 V outputs such that some devices are operating just below their required voltage. It is one of the facts of PC life how a thousand dollars worth of fancy computer electronics is often powered by a low-bidder's <$20 power supply.

You might also search the vendor's site for your motherboard to see if others are reporting any similar problems with the controller.

[sansemiano]

exchanging the power supply is not so easy in my case. it's an ac silentium t2 with a custom built powersupply by seasonic. for the time being i will ramp the powersupply fans a bit up to lower the temps inside a bit.

i'll download memtest and let it do it's thing later after seeing what lower temps in the powersupply do.

thanks for the suggestions.

[sansemiano]

ha!, the system just generated a load of eventid:11 messages on the system disc (drive 0), while it was doing nothing and with powersupply temps 10 degrees lower than normal.

so, what does this mean? :)

when ati makes the system generate these message it happens on disc 1 (the data disc), where it wants to put it's image. now the system disc generates the messages without any system load.

btw, ati now also generates the eventid:11 things, but on the data disc (disc 1).

to make things even more weird: the system works fine despite these error messages, except for ati.

[sansemiano]

now 30 minutes later i gave it another try and ati worked without giving error-messages.

temps of power supply, mobo, cpu and discs are a few degrees higher than 30 minutes ago.

weird...

[Menorcaman]

O.K. Now run Memtest86+ for a few hours and see if it reports any errors.

Regards

[sansemiano]

hello menorcaman,

memtest has been running for a couple of hours and found no errors.

all this tested with a 5% AI NOS overclock. AMD X2 4400 @ 2312Mhz and 4Gb Corsair DDR400 memory @ 210Mhz (DDR420). CAS latencies 2.5-3-6-6.

stable as a rock.

best regards, sanse

[bodgy]

Whilst I'm on my power trip :) , check to make sure none of your main motherboard capacitors are getting warm, or are bulging, or if have bulged, brown sticky goo oozing out.

The ones to look at are tall, will have an approximate value of 330uF -> 1500uF.

If bulging or already leaking, they'll need replacing, making sure they are replaced with 105 deg C low ESR types (the more expensive ones natch).

If you have access to a voltmeter or multimeter, it would be interesting to see if there is any AC ripple getting to the motherboard on the dc lines.

Most PC power supplies only regulate the +5v line. It might be worth disconnecting one drive and see if the problem still appears. Obviously this makes using TI in your setup a little difficult. Is there adequate airflow over the harddrives?

Colin

[sansemiano]

the motherboard is only one year old. bulging capacitors seems to be something for much older setups. the power supply is a high quality seasonic setup. the system can't run with only one drive.

if the power supply is the culprit it would mean a new case, cause it is custom made for this case.

running stress-tests with cpu-burn and rthdribl gives no strange effects. just like the memtest-test stable as a rock.

running hd-tune tests on the harddiscs also give fine results. nothing wrong. smart-data gives no reason to worry.

it's a puzzle. :)

[bodgy]

Do you have access to a multimeter?

To test for AC ripple on a DC line, attach the black lead of the MM to a part of the metal case, then place the red lead on one of the red cables from the power supply - have the meter set to AC and the 20v or 15v range (just in case you try a 12v line by mistake). The needle or readout should be very close to zero. Reduce the meter range until you get 2 or 3 digit readings.

If using an analogue meter, the needle may tremble, which is a good indication of poor DC smoothing somewhere in your system. For a digital meter, there will be some noise so the least significant digit will probably flicker. If there is a reading to be had, the readout will be reasonably constant, it may fluctuate but not by very much.

It would be worth doing the test near the filter caps on the MB as well, as the amount of filtering from standard (but possibly not your one) is not what could be called excellent.

Colin

Colin

[sansemiano]

yes, i do have access to a multimeter. i even know how to use it. i'm from origin an electronic engineer.

but, my sixth sense says it ain't the power supply that is the culprit. besides that motherboard monitor is constantly monitoring all voltages and those haven't changed a bit from the past.

and hard-discs are hardly a serious load for a 350 watt powersupply. idle consumption is about 8 watts each and when under full stress maybe 10 watts.

i think it has something to do with the nvidia storage drivers. maybe it wasn't wise to install every update of it. maybe it's better to revert to an older chipset-driver.

[techtype]

What happens when you turn off AI Nos overclock?

[seekforever]

-{ Quote: "...
i think it has something to do with the nvidia storage drivers. maybe it wasn't wise to install every update of it. maybe it's better to revert to an older chipset-driver." }-

I am inclined to agree that it is not faulty hardware and may well be the drivers. Do a Google search for ID 11 and Nvidia; you will see various references, some of them fairly old.

I think techtype's suggestion of disabling the AI NOS to be a good and easy one to try just to eliminate it from the possibilities list if nothing else.

[sansemiano]

-{ Quote: "What happens when you turn off AI Nos overclock?" }-

it doesn't make a difference. tried that. :)

[sansemiano]

removed all nvidia drivers inclusing the grpahics driver and then removed residues with driver cleaner pro.

then rebooted and had a look in the system log. no eventid:11 error messages during boot.

then i made an image of the driverless windows partition with ati home 10. no problem. went smoothly without any errors.

after that i installed the chipset-drivers (6.86) and rebooted. had a look in the system log and no eventid:11 error messages during boot.

then i installed the graphics driver and rebooted. another look in the system log and there the famous eventid:11 error messages re-appear during boot.

and now a few minutes later the system generates them spontaneous.

it seems graphics driver 93.71 is not compatible with storage driver 6.86.

:)

[sansemiano]

un-installed display driver 93.71 and rebooted.

no eventid:11 messages during boot. only 2 nvata messages stating both harddiscs were recognized.

tried ati: works fine.

sooooh, now what?

install display driver 91.47, 91.31, 84.21, 81.98 or 81.95? :)

[techtype]

-{ Quote: "un-installed display driver 93.71 and rebooted.

no eventid:11 messages during boot. only 2 nvata messages stating both harddiscs were recognized.

tried ati: works fine.

sooooh, now what?

install display driver 91.47, 91.31, 84.21, 81.98 or 81.95? :)" }-

Wait for a day and see if the messages reappear. You've gone without them for periods before.

[sansemiano]

true, true.

i'll do that.

[bodgy]

My NVidia driver is 84.21, with no problems as far as TI is concerned. I did have a problem with Acronis Malware Shield, because of an older version of the driver.

On the power supply comment, I actually have in my lap (and why not?) an ATX S-ata style power supply, which will sulk if two S-ata drives are used, but quite happy if only one drive is connected - connect the extra drive, power feeds become very noisy and then overcurrent crowbar zaps into action and it switches itself off.

I'll get around to repairing it one day.

Now if you had a comms problem, I'd jump right to different earth potentials as a problem, but <sigh> that'd be a definite red herring here.

Colin

[sansemiano]

it might not be the 93.71 display driver itself, but a combination with the 6.86 chipsetdriver.

just installed the 81.95 display driver and promptly eventid:11 messages re-appear in the log during boot.

so, i think i will revert to an older chipsetdriver and see what happens then.

[sansemiano]

just installed chipsetdrivers 6.70 and display drivers 84.21. and guess what?

eventid:11 messages in the log during boot.

sofar not during normal operation.

if i un-install the display driver there are no eventid:11 messages in the log.

[sansemiano]

-{ Quote: "My NVidia driver is 84.21, with no problems as far as TI is concerned. I did have a problem with Acronis Malware Shield, because of an older version of the driver.

On the power supply comment, I actually have in my lap (and why not?) an ATX S-ata style power supply, which will sulk if two S-ata drives are used, but quite happy if only one drive is connected - connect the extra drive, power feeds become very noisy and then overcurrent crowbar zaps into action and it switches itself off.

I'll get around to repairing it one day.

Now if you had a comms problem, I'd jump right to different earth potentials as a problem, but <sigh> that'd be a definite red herring here.

Colin" }-

:)

i like to check the easy things first. besides that i don't think the powersupply is wrong. as soon as the nvidia-drivers are un-installed the system does not show the errors we are talking about here.

and i guess both drives take about the same amount of power whether they are driven by the native windows drivers or by the nvidia drivers.

[sansemiano]

lots of spontaneous eventid:11 messages now in the log on disc 1 with 6.70 and 84.21.

however ati works flawless at the moment despite the system generating error message just before.

so, lets see how this develops.

[GianniC]

Just a question:
Does your system work fine (no Evt 11) with some chipset(storage) driver installed?
I mean: did you use the system for some time (one day or longer) with some version of chipset driver installed and get no error? Did your disks work in UltraDMA mode during this time?

[Menorcaman]

This thread has now moved away from an Acronis True Image support issue and is hereby closed. Suggest you continue trouble shooting the Event 11 error problem by starting a new thread in the <Software & Services Forum> (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=48).

Regards

Menorcaman