topic Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible in Operating System - Tru64 Unix

DS20 problem , booting not possible

DERAR — Tue, 18 May 2010 07:15:21 GMT

dear all,

i have an alphaserver DS20, which is not capable of booting after a problem occured with Power System. Now , the server is starting until the P0>>, and when i run the test command , i get the message :

Hard Error – Error #5
Error in read of 0 Bytes at location 00002A00 from device dra0.0.0.8.1

Diagnostic Name = exer_kid
ID = 000002c1
Device = dra0.0.0.8.1
Pass = 0
Test = 0
Hard / Soft = 1/0

What does this mean ?

how can i solve it ?

Regards

Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible

Steven Schweda — Tue, 18 May 2010 12:10:05 GMT

> Error in read [...]

> What does this mean ?

Sounds like a read error on dra0. From the
device name, I'd guess that this is a disk on
some RAID adapter about which I know nothing.

> [...] when i run the test command [...]

Why not the "boot" command?

While you're waiting for a response from
someone who knows something, you might
provide the output from

>>>show config
>>>show device

Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible

Rob Leadbeater — Tue, 18 May 2010 19:58:41 GMT

Hi,

dra0 is a RAID disk device provided by a KZPAC card, sometimes known as a SWXCR.

What happens when you try to boot ?

Do any of the hard drives show a yellow light ?

As Steven suggests, a "show dev" will probably yield some useful information.

You will probably want to hunt out the floppy that contains the RCU (RAID Configuration Utility) for the KZPAC.

Cheers,

Rob

Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible

DERAR — Sun, 23 May 2010 04:55:11 GMT

SOME TESTS ON THE DS20 system :
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

1) When trying the command show Bios I noticed the system hangs for 2-3 minutes and then gives a 3-lines output :
Dra.0.0.8.1 â Mylex DAC960
Vga0.0.0.7.0 â ELSA
Pka0.7.0.6.0 â Adaptec AIC â 7895

2) When trying to boot normally either to single mode or multi user mode, I get the following error message:

Hard Error â Error #5
Error in read of 0 Bytes at location 00002A00 from device dra0.0.0.8.1

Diagnostic Name = exer_kid
ID = 000002c1
Device = dra0.0.0.8.1
Pass = 0
Test = 0
Hard / Soft = 1/0

3) When typing the command (show bootdef_dev) I get:
Dra0.0.0.8.1

4) When trying the command (show d) I get :

Dra0.0.0.8.1 DRA0 1 member JBOD
Dra1.0.0.8.1 DRA1 3 member RAID 5
Dra2.0.0.8.1 DRA2 3 member RAID 5
Dra3.0.0.8.1 DRA3 3 member RAID 5
Dra4.0.0.8.1 DRA4 3 member RAID 5

5) Version of alpha Bios is (ALPHABios 5.71-R1)

6) When checking system configuration and HDD configuration using the command alphabios â g I get :

â ¦â ¦.. Initializing Adaptec Storage #0
â ¦â ¦.. Initializing Adaptec Storage #1
â ¦â ¦.. Initializing Mylex Storage #0

No disks found under Adaptec Storage #0 and #1

Following disk are found under Mylex Storage #0:

Disk 0 Mylex Storage #0 SCSI ID 383 Size 0 MB ***off-line***
Disk 1 Mylex Storage #0 SCSI ID 384 Size â ¦.. MB
Disk 2 Mylex Storage #0 SCSI ID 385 Size â ¦.. MB
Disk 3 Mylex Storage #0 SCSI ID 386 Size â ¦â ¦ MB
Disk 4 Mylex Storage #0 SCSI ID 387 Size â ¦.. MB

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

REGARDS

DERAR

Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible

Rob Leadbeater — Sun, 23 May 2010 05:38:53 GMT

Hi,

> When typing the command (show bootdef_dev) I get:
> Dra0.0.0.8.1

> When trying the command (show d) I get :
> Dra0.0.0.8.1 DRA0 1 member JBOD

OK, your boot device is DRA0 which is Just a Bunch Of Disks (JBOD) and it looks to have failed. JBODs provide no resilience, so using one as a boot device is not a good idea.

Disk 0 Mylex Storage #0 SCSI ID 383 Size 0 MB ***off-line***

Having said that the SCSI ID above looks wrong, so this could be an issue with the disk, the Mylex controller or both.

Cheers,

Rob

Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible

DERAR — Sun, 23 May 2010 07:00:26 GMT

Dear Rob,

what does it mean when saying (disk is off-line) ???

and why is the SCSI ID wrong ?

i have 7 disks inside the DS20 enclosure ? the 3rd from left is blinking red-orange .

i wonder that i can see only 5 disks :

1 is JBOD
4 are members of RAID 5,

and the other 2 are not showing here.

How can i interpret this ?

Thanks alot
DERAR

Re: DS20 problem , booting not possible

Rob Leadbeater — Sun, 23 May 2010 08:19:06 GMT

Hi,

> what does it mean when saying (disk is off-line) ???

Offline means that the RAID controller can't see the disk - either it has failed or there's something else wrong.

If you do only 7 physical disks, then this looks more likely to be an issue with the RAID controller itself. That seems to think that there are 13 physical disks (the JBOD and 4 x 3 Disk RAID 5s).

Either way, I hope you have good backups of this system.

Cheers,

Rob