Intermittent Corruption of boot drive MBR/BCD/Bootmanager

[McTahr]

So, this is something I've been working around for a bit and thought I'd pick some of your brains over. (Probably Synk of all people, given the issue.)

I run a RocketRAID 2640x4 setup with a JBOD SAS 140g raptor boot drive and two 1tb SATA drives running in RAID 1. Windows Vista install, updated and kept clean regularly with no viruses or such issues.

Occasionally, the master boot record, boot manager, and boot configuration data devour themselves into a black abyss and my windows installation vanishes from the face of the earth. This in and of itself is an easy enough fix, and not the issue. The issue is that it happens again. And again. Every few days.

This started occurring following a hardware swap. I replaced two old (one not working) video cards with two fresher models from the Cyber Monday Newegg sales, along with swapping out the RAM and replacing one of the 1tb drives that was going bad. I followed standard precautions for working on hardware.

I've run standard disk check, and will be running SeaTools and some other diagnostics shortly, but picking up some theories and leads from the peanut gallery can't hurt in the mean time.

Current ideas:
-Faulty RAM. For intermittent issues it's generally my go-to.
-Drive got bumped or otherwise decided to start crapping out. Seems unlikely given ESD/handling precautions taken, but no one's perfect, and I do have poor luck with drives.
-Cthulhu has arisen.

Obviously, hardware should always be the first approach, but I'm lazy goddamnit, and if I can get out of this without having to return/re-getify that RAM, I'll be happy.

[shiney]

If your installation is disappearing, I wouldn't suspect RAM inasmuch as the system simply wouldn't boot properly if you had faulty RAM. It's possibly the RAID configuration, although if you use a specific drive for the boot / windows installation you might look at that as your primary suspect. How is your BIOS configured to read the RAID setup? The boot drive? Why are you using Vista, you idiot?

[Bells]

Not that i'm any kind of expert on this issue, but from what you described i would be looking into my Bios like Shiney said and the new HD itself.

On a completely Fringe option, also check your mobo's battery. I had a mobo with a faulty battery that would reset my bios to factory default if i unplugged the pc (or during a power shortage), i would imagine that a faulty battery like that in effect during a windows install, could cause some corruption issues here and there.

[McTahr]

Originally Posted by shiney

If your installation is disappearing, I wouldn't suspect RAM inasmuch as the system simply wouldn't boot properly if you had faulty RAM. It's possibly the RAID configuration, although if you use a specific drive for the boot / windows installation you might look at that as your primary suspect. How is your BIOS configured to read the RAID setup? The boot drive? Why are you using Vista, you idiot?

RAM can on occasion still boot or show intermittent issues before finally crashing and burning. It's happened to me before on an older build.

BIOS battery is fine. BIOS is directed to boot first to the RAID controller (optical drives secondary), then the RAID controller is set to boot to the 140g drive and only the 140g drive. Running Vista because I legitimately own a massively discounted upgrade copy and the upgrade to 7 it came with expired long before I needed to do a re-install leaving me with Vista and no upgrade.

E: Update: Memtest came out clean. The way it's behaving I'm almost certain it's hardware related. My next guess is the RAID controller. It seems to occasionally lose track of the spare drive that was added recently as well. Sometimes it recognizes it and treats it as part of the RAID 1, and about every other boot it doesn't, and brings up the RAID health as critical, with the original drive sitting pretty and the newer one not registering period (and next boot it'll register just fine). I'm going to try swapping out the slot that drive connects to, but I'm on a fucked sleep schedule due to flu/fever/finals so I'm going to nap before I bother. (Obviously, I'm loath to admit it's the RAID card because that means I'm especially fucked.)

E: Update redux: Process of elimination and a bit of housecleaning cleared up the issue and a few others. Swapping the slot being used and removing some old optical drives that were desperately clinging to life has left me error free for a week. Oh well.