System Event ID 11 Disk

Question

Upon starting Windows Server 2008 R2 I get this error message:

Event ID 11 Disk

The driver detected a controller error on \Device\Harddisk3\DR3.

There are also also 3 more similar messages for Harddisk 2, 4, and 5, but not zero or 1.

Checking the event viewer reveals it's been going on for 3 months.

I ran chkdsk - no bad sectors.

Any advice on the cause, better still, a solution?

Answer 1

I saw these errors when one of my RAID controllers was failing. You may find the below knowledge-base article helpful, although it provides general starting points rather than in-depth troubleshooting.

In almost all cases, these messages are being posted due to hardware problems with either the controller or, more likely, a device that is attached to the controller in question. The hardware problems can be associated with poor cabling, incorrect termination or transfer rate settings, lazy or slow device responses to relinquish the SCSI bus, a faulty device, or, in very rare cases, a poorly written device driver.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154690

Note that it can also be caused by using consumer grade drives with a RAID controller that expects writes to complete quickly. Although a write using a consumer grade drive my complete successfully, the RAID controller will report a timeout. I think Western Digital drives are more prone to this than any other.

This may also be helpful.