Hot Swappable SATA Drives

[J A Barnes]

I have a ML 350 G5 server. We have hot swappable SATA drives. There are two that are in use in a RAID 1 configuration. We want to use the third for disk to disk backups. My problem/question is when we attempt to unplug the drive from the hot swap backplane, Windows 2003 gives write delay errors. Plugging the drive (or another) does not correct the issue. When the machine is rebooted the user has to accept (pressing F2) that the drive was indeed removed.

Is there a way to unplug the drive without these errors occurring (such as Safely Remove Hardware option)?

The controller is an Smart Array E200i embedded controller.

Any feedback would be great.

[marcus1234]

appears all 3 drives are part of your raid

look in hp tools acu click on you controller post the screnshot here

, while there click on status messages, post that screenshot here too


do all disk have green lights any amber or red

[J A Barnes]

The third drive is configured as a separate array (RAID 0). All lights on the caddies are the same (green and blue). The screen shot for the ACU are included. When I click on view status alerts I get the message that there are no status messages at this time (I can indlude that one if you want)

[marcus1234]

in acu click on the disk that is alone the light should go blue on the disk

ensure you pull the
disk that lights up..
not one of the other two in the raid set.


if it still plays up and 3 disks out

and on boot go into controller and erase the arary F8 reboot
then add the two disks in the raid set back to their slots and all should be ok..

and then you have the spare disk in you hand,,

[marcus1234]

important take all 3 disk out before deleting the array..

[J A Barnes]

I am a little unclear. You want to pull out the drive that is not in the RAID 1 set, then delete the RAID 0 drive so that it is in hand?

[marcus1234]

no

go in acu click on the drive the one that is alone the one you want out

it should light blue pull that out if all is okay fine.

do not pull a disk that is part of the array

if this works then all is fine

try it then let us know

[marcus1234]

now if it still plays up do this

if you have a tape backup


pull all 3 disks out

and on boot go into controller and erase the array info by pressing F8 reboot

then add the two disks in the raid set back to their slots and all should be ok..

and then you have the spare disk in you hand,,

[J A Barnes]

I pulled out the spare drive when it was blue. After a few minutes, the Windows write delay message appears. I opened the ACU and see the messages that the drive is bad or missing (which is what I would expect). I am attacing a screen shot so you can see the messages.

I do not have a tape drive. So I am a little weary of pulling the drives out and deleting the array.

[J A Barnes]

I powered the server down, pulled all three drives out. Rebooted. When the system comes up to the array in the boot sequence but it does not give the option of pressing F8 to enter the utility because it detects no drives in the system