Thanks for the suggestions. I checked all the connections. The card was seated firmly in the slot, as were the power and SATA connectors. I took the card out, cleaned the PCI slot, and put it back in making sure it was well-seated. I reconnected the power connector to the drive and replaced the SATA connector with a different one (both were brand new but different brands). Then I ran the preclear script. It seemed to be going well. I thought maybe accessing one of the other drives simultaneously would trigger the freeze, so I put the array online and started playing a video file off it. After half an hour, it was still okay, so I thought the problem was solved. I took the array offline while the preclear script continued to run. An hour later, the system was still up and the script was about 50% through the first pre-read cycle. Now I actually did want to watch a video file on the array (not just for testing), so I put the array online again and started playing the video file. Within a minute of doing so, the system froze. Nothing came up in the log when it froze. It seems like accessing drives connected to the motherboard and to the PCI controller card simultaneously does help to trigger the freeze, although I don't know why I was able to do so for half an hour in my first test with no problems and then it froze almost right away the second time.
Anyway, I've attached some log files. Syslog00 is a log of my system without the controller card installed. Syslog01 is a log of my system with the controller card installed and connected to a drive. Syslog02 is the result of tailing the log file while running the preclear script. Nothing appeared in the log at the time of the freeze, though.
I will run the memory test overnight.
My system details are:
Motherboard: ASRock 939DUAL-SATA2
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 3200+ (S939)
Memory: 1GB
Power Supply: 480W
Disk configuration:
Parity: Seagate Barracuda LP 2TB connected to motherboard
Data Disk 1: Western Digital WD10EARS Caviar Green 1TB (not jumpered for compatibility) connected to motherboard
Data Disk 2: Seagate Barracuda LP 1TB connected to motherboard
The disk I am trying to clear is the only one connected to the new SATA controller card (a Syba SY-VIA-150R). It is a Hitachi Deskstar HD31000 IDK/7K 1TB. It used to be my parity drive.
Thanks.
syslog00.txt
syslog01.txt
syslog02.txt