RAID problem

[Scruff]

Hi all,

 

I have an old ML350 (soon to be recycled) which i had to shut down due to some constuction work in the server room, when I booted the machine back up it couldnt find the OS and therefore wouldn't boot and one of the 3 scsi disks wasn't lit up. I had a spare handy so swapped it out it had the same issue as the other.

 

I verified that it was a disk problem and not the controller by moving one of the good disks in to the slot to see if the drive would light up and stay up which it did.

 

So i had another replacement drive delivered today, popped it it and it does the same as the other two faulty ones, lights up when you hit the power button but goes straight back down with no warning lights. I find it massivly hard to believe that I have 3 faulty disks but no clue as to what the actual problem might be.

 

Any ideas ?

 

TIA and Cheers

Scruff

[DMcCoy]

Hi all,

 

I have an old ML350 (soon to be recycled) which i had to shut down due to some constuction work in the server room, when I booted the machine back up it couldnt find the OS and therefore wouldn't boot and one of the 3 scsi disks wasn't lit up. I had a spare handy so swapped it out it had the same issue as the other.

 

I verified that it was a disk problem and not the controller by moving one of the good disks in to the slot to see if the drive would light up and stay up which it did.

 

So i had another replacement drive delivered today, popped it it and it does the same as the other two faulty ones, lights up when you hit the power button but goes straight back down with no warning lights. I find it massivly hard to believe that I have 3 faulty disks but no clue as to what the actual problem might be.

 

Any ideas ?

 

TIA and Cheers

Scruff

 

 

It's not a 532 array controller is it?

[Geoff]

Also is this a hotswap system with a SCSI backplane? as the backplane might of broken. Try moving the drive to another slot on the backplane.

[jsnetman]

I'm having the same sort of problem, turned out to be the hot swap bay having some electronics at the back seems to have malfunctioned. awaiting a replacement and hope it actually is the problem.

[Scruff]

not sure, it doesn't say during the boot process.

 

It's actually an ML370 from yesteryear not a 350.

[Scruff]

Also is this a hotswap system with a SCSI backplane? as the backplane might of broken. Try moving the drive to another slot on the backplane.

 

it is but the good drives stay good in every slot, the 3 bad drives stay bad in every slot

[Geoff]

Do the drives plug directly into the backplane or do you use caddies? have you tried another caddy?

[Scruff]

Do the drives plug directly into the backplane or do you use caddies? have you tried another caddy?

 

directly in, it's the 177986-001 drives as seen here (random link from google)

[DMcCoy]

not sure, it doesn't say during the boot process.

 

It's actually an ML370 from yesteryear not a 350.

 

It won't if it's a 532, thats the problem. The battery dies and it no longer works or shows up in the boot sequence.

[Scruff]

It won't if it's a 532, thats the problem. The battery dies and it no longer works or shows up in the boot sequence.

 

Would that not affect every drive in the controller ?

[DMcCoy]

Depends on the drive firmware version I believe, I always had the middle drive not light up when mine was dead.

[Scruff]

Depends on the drive firmware version I believe, I always had the middle drive not light up when mine was dead.

 

Tah, I shall check this out as a possible cause.

 

That design seems madness, shame the damn thing only had to last until my new DL380 and MSA60 arrived, now i need a way to rescue my data :\

[DMcCoy]

you could try leaving it off for a few days, then mine came back to life, rebooting killed it again.

[Scruff]

a quick update....

 

after dismantling the server i found the controller to be a smart array 5i controller, i've reseasted that i also took out the backplane to get rid of the 8 years of dust and put that back in.

 

now only one of the drives is lighting up so it's actually got worse =\

 

Scruff

[jsnetman]

Like I said earlier had the same symptoms but on different hardware. Turned out to be the backplane or hot swap bay at fault. Replaced it and all is well. I'm not familiar with your hardware but if the backplane has any electronics on it at all, that could be the cause of the problem. The way I idendified the problem was by by-passing the backplane and plugging a drive straight into the controller.

[Scruff]

Like I said earlier had the same symptoms but on different hardware. Turned out to be the backplane or hot swap bay at fault. Replaced it and all is well. I'm not familiar with your hardware but if the backplane has any electronics on it at all, that could be the cause of the problem. The way I idendified the problem was by by-passing the backplane and plugging a drive straight into the controller.

 

Thanks I shall do the same and see what the result is.