Windows 10: HDDs in RAID have started spinning down then back up again at restart and shutdown.

Hi,

I have a head scratcher of an issue. I have scoured the internet but cannot find a mention of anyone else with the issue or fixes.

After doing a clean installing of Windows 10 Home 2004, my hardware Raid setup has demonstrated a new and worrying behaviour vs 1909 I was on before. That behaviour is that when you tell Windows to ‘shut down’ or ‘restart’, just before the PC restarts or powers down, my HDD’s spin down and then instantly spin up again. This is different to the normal behaviour I had on my previous pre 2004 installs. That being that, when you restart the disks keep spinning and when shut down the disks keep spinning until the PC powers down. This spin down and then back up behaviour causes delays in shut down and restarting as either does not happen until the disks have spun up again, with the HDD activity light on solid while the spin down and back up happens. Not to mention the extra drive wear, from having to stop and start spinning unnecessarily. It appears to be the same kind of spin down that would happen if you had the ‘turn off hard disk drive’ timer set in windows power options. These I have always had set as never. I only went to reinstall my OS as my Windows started having issues with installing some ASUS lighting and fan management software.

I assumed this was an issue with 2004, which is fine, as it pretty new, so decided to try 1909 again. Unfortunately I over wrote the USB stick I used to install 1909 with the 2004 install. Of course it was not easy to find 1909 media to put on the stick again, but that means I was not installing from the same media I previously installed 1909 from I.e. made with media creation tool. That install of 1909 did not have this HDD issue. Unfortunately that clean 1909 install also had the issue. I also tried 1903 and 1803, not from official MS source though as I could not obtain that frustratingly. Also the same, it can also be seen when restarting from the install media itself, i.e. not doing an install and telling it to quit instead, which causes a restart.

I also tried upgrading my motherboard bios to the latest and then down to an earlier bios with an older Raid version.

I tried swapping the power cabling and SATA cables for the HDD’s.

I then tried deleting and recreating the RAID after installing Windows.

I tried swapping the HDD’s for another couple of spare drives I have. Same issue.

After further investigation I found that this only happens when there is a RAID setup. It does not happen when the BIOS is set to ACHI or RAID mode, it only happens when drives have been set to be in a raid, whether RAID 0 or 1.

Finally just to see, I had some Windows 8.1 install media kicking around, so tried that. On Windows 8.1, the drives setup in a RAID behaved as normal.

So from the testing it looks like a software issue rather than a hardware one, otherwise I would expect have expected Windows 8.1 to have the same issue. Also I would be surprised if the hardware just suddenly had an issue when installing the updated version of Windows as that is too much of a coincidence.

Quick note on SATA drivers. I have only ever used the standard windows installed drivers and have never used Intel’s RST drivers, so that is not a variable. I did try installing the latest version of RST to see if that helped, but was no help.

So I am at a complete loss as to what is happening here. I have no idea why rolling back to the version of Windows 10 I was on has not helped, but again the install media I use for the install was not exactly the same as I used to install 1909. In the mean time I have had to give up with the hardware Raid and use the software Raid function in Windows 10, but that is obviously not as good with less performance.

PC spec:
CPU: Intel i9 9900k
Motherboard: Asus Maximus XI Hero WiFi Intel Z390 Motherboard Bios Ver 1502
Memory: 16 Gb Corsair F43200C14-8GTZR
GPU: GeForce GTX1080ti GPU
Storage
Samsung 960 Pro M.2 SSD Windows Installation location
x2 WDC WD1000DHTZ Raid 0 in connected to Motherboard SATA connections
Windows 10 Home Ver:2004

:)

 

Anniversary Edition no spinning dots at restart/shutdown

I am having a Win 10 1607 restart issue.
In my case the system tries to restart but only the screen goes black and then the screen powers off.
The PC keeps running but will not restart.
I have to push the reset button to restart the PC.
Shut down works fine.
In both cases there are no spinning dots...

Can any one help with the restart issue.
I have tried most suggestions on the interweb:////

 

RAID, Backing Up, Questions etc

Ok, Ive done a search for RAID related articles on the forums and Ive read through them.
I'd like to RAID my hard drives very soon.

This is what I have:
1x Seagate 7200.10 Perpendicular - 320Gb
1x Seagate 7200.10 Perpendicular - 250Gb

Id like to set them up in a RAID 0 configuration.
Ive backed up my Music, downloads, main applications and photos.
Basically Im ready to go though the steps to RAID my drives and reinstall windows.

Now...I have some concerns

1) Do I format the drives? Or will formatting occur during the setting up of the RAID?

2) How to actually configure the RAID. So if I was to do this now, what are the steps I would have to follow to setup the RAID correctly? I know them vaguely, like having the RAID drivers ready on a CD/Floppy and booting and hitting F6. What else is there?

3) Striping size. Ive heard that a higher stripe size is good for moving/using large files. Ill definately be doing this (Photoshop) so can anyone suggest a stripe size?

4) Can anyone suggest any other concerns?

 

Hard drive/ OS issue

a guy suggested :

• shutdown
• unhooked HDD
• restarted
• yay !!
• reconnected HDD
• restarted
• yay !!

also , try method 3
How do I unlock the drive where Windows 10 is installed?