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Re: FC30 and SP Database/Disk problem

 
Craig D. Wilcox
Occasional Contributor

FC30 and SP Database/Disk problem

In a classic cost saving effort, we've obtained a bare FC30 (2 SPs, 2x FC-AL) chassis from one source, and 30 9gb drives from another source.

After loading the disks in, attaching a terminal to SP-A and the Fibre Channel stuff, the SPs pass their self tests, but fail on FLARE with error:

Could not find Valid FLARE image.

It actually does ID some code on Disk A0, (code 9.55 I think it is) but doesn't find anything else on A3, A4, B0 or C0.

From reading the manual (imagine that! ) It appears as though there should be some SP microcode on each of those disks that the SPs use to get things initialized and all.

Questions. How do I generate the correct microcode and distribute it to the disks when the server (a C3000 with 2x FCAL cards in it) can't see the SPs or disks at all? STM appears to be the ticket, but since they don't talk.. we have a problem Houston.... Is there a magic way to use the Gridmanager stuff to get the databases initialized? or is this a call to the HP Field engineers and their magic laptop?

Any help is appreciated!
3 REPLIES 3
Insu Kim
Honored Contributor

Re: FC30 and SP Database/Disk problem

With the problem, it seems that FC30 is not able to load FlareCode into memory.
One of the reason for this is actually no Flarecode on the database drives because you bought disk drives apart from SP(Storage Processor), Chassie and put simply them in the array.
Those drives have no flarecode.

In this case, there're a couple of ways of handing this problem.

One is, contact HP. they have somewhat unusual disk drive for this purpose, that is, it has a flarecode inside.

The othere is if you have another FC30 nearby, pull out one of the database drives that already contain Flarecode and put it into your array, therefore, your disk array will be able to boot from that drive.
Once FC30 is up, it automatically copies its flarecode to several disk drives called database drive.

Hope this helps,
Never say "no" first.
Vincent Farrugia
Honored Contributor

Re: FC30 and SP Database/Disk problem

Hello,

In order for the latter suggestion by Insu Kim to work, the other FC30's SP has to have the same firmware as the one giving you trouble.

I guess that if you bought 30 disks, some of them may have the flare code. You could reshuffle your disks randomly so that maybe some of them have the flare code in A0, B0, C0, A3 and A4. If you are lucky, i.e. The disks have to have the same firmware microcode as your SPs in any case.

I would call HP and make them bring that magic harddisk.

HTH,
Vince
Tape Drives RULE!!!
Craig D. Wilcox
Occasional Contributor

Re: FC30 and SP Database/Disk problem

thanks!

upon boot it did actually find one FLARE image, but the firmware/microcode rev didn't match--hence the failure I mentioned.

Since the machine is going on maintenance anyway, HP's magic disk drive will be the way to go I think--easy, less wear and tear and then a known quantity for us to deal with.