ML 350 G5 Smart Array E200i, drive failure ???

[Peter H - Amal]

Hi All...

Today and yesterday, I've been struggling with our server, a ML 350 G5 with SA E200i. Three drives all in one array, Raid5. What my problem is ? Well, one of the drives does not indicate any activity, the LED:s are dead. The two other drives are working, but the LED:s are not flashing with the same green intensity as usual.
Summery of what I've done...
Yesterday I took down the server and inserted an extra NIC. While I were at it, I also use some compressed air to blow out the dust, inside the server and also in the disk bay. Very softly and gently, I removed each drive and resituated it, in it's designated slot again. Then I put the cover back on, and started up the server. The OS found the new NIC, I installed the drivers and configured the IP-settings etc..(Att: No errors were present during the Bootstrap, that indicated drive erros..) Also configured RRAS and did a little mistake, that made it impossible to regain control of the server again. At this point I administred it from a remote computer. I went to the server room and tried to log in, but the server had hung. So no other option then to shut it down...:( Pressed powerbutton..NOw that this is not to recommend, but had no option...
After reboot, the first drive, started to blink amber. Which gave me an indication that it was something wrong with it. Started ACU and found out that the drive was under reconstruction. After finishing up, the messeage was sent to Event log, that the drive in bay 1 was ok and ready for use..But that is not the case, the first drive doesn't indicate any HDD activity(RW operations), eventhough all of the HP:s software indicate drives to be operational and in good condition. What can be wrong ? The two other drives are working slow, and the server is behaving strange. I have backups in store, so I can sleep a little bit better..:(

Will call HP 2morrow...
/ Regards PH

[Blazhev_1]

Hi,

i don't think you have a drive failure.
what you can do is opening the sever again, reseating the backplane and checking the cables(BBWC cable too if you have one).

Then login and update the driver for the controller and all firmwares with Firmware maintenance CD 7.9.

You can run online insight diagnostics(from SMH) and from the TEST/Diagnose tab to run a Controller/Drive diagnostic and check results.

Then you can check ADU for problems, the best is to send it to HP support, they will read if for you.

Regards,
Pac

[Mi6t0]

Hello :)

First of all - start the HP ADU and make an ADUreport. you could paste it here, so that I can see it.

Are you sure that you have raid 5? e200 supports raid 5 only when BBWC is installed. The first drive could be a spare or someting like that. In the ADU it will be shown if there are some errors.

About the NICs - please, tell me what this PCI NIC is?

If you have win2k SP2, a good idea is to disable the TOE in network configuration utility.

Greets! :)

[chongkan]

If when booting teh drive shows LED activity you have a RIS copy error on that drive ( wrong ID )..

If so then take the server down, move the 2 functional drives about 1" but don't take them out of the slot, just unplug them.

upgrade FW on the controller.

With the dead drive in the server boot the server and go to RBSU, Run the clear NVRAM/boot disc option.

reboot to smart start and check that there is no configuration on the array controller, if there is any then run erase utility from there.

If there is no config, take the server down, remove the drive, plug the 2 functional drives back again and the array will be recognized from the drives..

It will be a degraded array, place the 3rd drive back into its original position.