mounted hard disc gave "device not configured"

[Rob .]

(apologies in advance if this silly hotmail account adds any HTML..)

Hi all,

I have a 4.8-RELEASE server running stock Generic kernal as a NFS and samba 
file server.  It's got a pile of standard IDE discs in it, 40 to 120Gb each, 
using two third party PCI IDE cards.

Within the last couple of weeks I have now had three hard disc go down - 
symptoms are basically that any access to the directories hosted on that 
drive gives a "device not configured" error.  Indeed anything trying to 
access the drive gives the same error.  even umount gives the same error...

a quick grep of the logs turns up:

Oct  5 03:03:29 luggage /kernel: ad3: READ command timeout tag=0 serv=0 - 
resett
ing
Oct  5 03:03:29 luggage /kernel: ata1: resetting devices ..
Oct  5 03:03:29 luggage /kernel: ad3: removed from configuration
Oct  5 03:03:29 luggage /kernel: done

Firsttly, and most important, is there anything I can do to restore the 
drive?  A reboot didn't ... There's not much in the top level directory of 
each drive, but loads in sub-folders.  They are not accessed much, but I 
don't particularly want to lose the data.  One of them is my backup drive, 
too...

What would you recommend to avoid problems in the future?  I think it's time 
to build a new server anyway (this is only an AMD K6 2/500)  - Would it be 
best to run a RAID filesystem, and would 1+0 be better than RAID5 for 
reslilence on future failures?  Is this reliable on cheap IDE drives?

Thanks in advance,

Rob.

luggage# df -h /dev/ad3s1e
df: /dev/ad3s1e: Device not configured

luggage# uname -a
FreeBSD luggage.internal.irrelevant.com 4.8-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.8-RELEASE #0: 
Thu Apr  3 10:53:38 GMT 2003     
root at freebsd-stable.sentex.ca:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/GENERIC  i386

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