HP ML350 G6 HDD No activity LED (only Blue LEDs)

[coldscientist]

I have an ML350 G6 that I have been using for as a WIN 2k8 R2 server and a RAID 1+0 (300GB 2HDD mirrored drives) and RAID 5  (2TB 4HDD mirrored drives) setup.

Although the OS seems to be running fine, I get no activity lights on the HDDs - other than a single steady blue LED. 

I installed all the latest drivers and firmware for the P410 controller (I'm using an additional P410 controller with 512MB instead of the P410i 256MB internal one), to no avail. still no LEDs on the HDDs.  The HP array configurator says everything is fine and there's no SMART alert - showing a 2 disk RAID 1+0 and 5 disk RAID 5 array. There's no SMART error count for any HDD and all 2TB 4HDD are new.

I deleted the entire array and started over. I went back into the BIOS and set it to the default. Then I went into Array configuration through F8 during POST and set up the array from scratch (no Smart Start CD). Then I did a full install of WIN 2K8 server from DVD.  I got the same thing-- no LEDs on the HDDs.   I spent the better part of the day going over any documentation I could find on the Hard drives, the server or the 410i controller. I even updated the array controller, BIOS and iLO firmware. No soap.

Has anybody seen this phenomenon of having no green LEDs lighting up on their RAID arrays?

I found a similar post with the same issue here into the forums, but I'm not sure that the HDD cage can be the root of my problem - https://community.hpe.com/t5/ProLiant-Servers-ML-DL-SL/ML350-G6-RAID5-no-activity-LEDs-on-HDDs/m-p/5390351#M124847

Even when I let the HDD cage disconnected from the array controller it steady blue LED. It happens with the external and internal P410 array controller. I opened up the HDD cage and took some photos. A HP representative come to my company to install the external P410 512MB RAID controller and configure the arrays and he said that the problem can be related to a missing  cable (I highlight the connector with red into the Google Photos album), but he's not sure.

I created a share at Google Photos to share the photos with you guys.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Kt1bWuojBsY42eMG9

How do I fix this?  Any suggestions would be appreciated.

[SanjeevGoyal]

Hello,

If the server is working with the latest bios and firmware and I hope you are using all new HPE hard drives, suspecting an issue with the hard disk caddy or cage.

You can try to swap the hard disk caddy with the 300 GB hard disk caddy to isolate the issue If the 300GB hard disk shows an LED indication.

If you feel this was helpful please click the KUDOS! thumb below!   

Regards,