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Re: Smart Start 8.15 not returning after ACU.

 
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Gord Andrews
New Member

Smart Start 8.15 not returning after ACU.

Proliant DL360 running as a 64 bit Hyper-V virtualization host.

Summary: After a hot swap of 1 drive in a Raid 5 Array, and presumably during the rebuild, booted the server from Smart Start 8.15 CD. Ran ACU, made no changes, exit ACT and it's hung with the hourglass "Returning to Server Maintenance" for over an hour.

Scenario: P400i with 2 72GB and one 146GB drives at Raid 5.
Bay 1 - 72 GB
Bay 2 - 72 GB
Bay 3 - 146 GB
Bay 4 - empty for now

Objective to increase all drives to 146GB and add a 4th.

OS - Windows 2008 Server Enterprise 64 bit.
Took backup of entire C: drive before starting using Windows Backup.

Hot swapped bay 2 - removed 72GB and inserted new 146GB. Rebuilding proceeding, with ACU run from OS. Yellow warning message shows rebuild properly, although I don't get any indication of percentage complete (as I have seen before).

Assumption 1 - that I could restore just part of my C: drive backup. Backup completed with warnings - some files could not be restored. This is likely because they were open / changed? Anyway, that's a Windows issue - my problem, not yours.

Assumption 2 - that I could do this restore while the rebuild was in progress.

After the restore completed with warnings, I rebooted the server from the Smart Start CD. Ran the ACU. Did not get the yellow screen warning me that the rebuild was still in progress. Blue lights on the 3 drives while ACU is running. Should have still been rebuilding the 146 GB because the hot swap was done at 5PM Tuesday and this is Wednesday noon. Expect it to take about 2 days to rebuild.

This is not a production server. I'm preparing it for development.

Questions:
1. Any mis-steps to date?
2. Why can't I see the % progress of the rebuild?
3. Why can't I see the Expand Array option in the ACU? Is it because my P400i doesn't have battery backed cache?

Thanks for your anticipated interest and comments.
Gord
Why have I got 2 profiles????
4 REPLIES 4
cnb
Honored Contributor
Solution

Re: Smart Start 8.15 not returning after ACU.

Hi,

It all depends on several factors.

Is all the F/W up to date?

These subsystems are notorious for rebuild issues when the Firmware (BIOS, RAID Controller, Drives, etc...)& O/S software (ACU and ADU) are not running the latest supported versions for your platform.

BTW: *Which* DL360(G1~G6) are you using?

Granted it *should* all be a seamless process but rarely is.

IMHO:

I would have waited for the rebuild to finish before attempting to use ACU. Version mis-match between h/w, f/w and s/w can induce the symptoms you're seeing.

1) Make sure all F/W and Utilities are current prior to performing any work.

2) Not sure, but best guess is possible version mismatch on new drive or P400i f/w caused the app to hang? There are known P400i issues doing array scans.

3) Yes

http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/12400_na/12400_na.HTML


Suggest you run ADU and review the F/W levels and compare them to the latest available. Check the report for disk errors after the swap occurred.

Any time a drive is replaced, the replacement should have a compatible version of F/W for the subsystem and they all s/b at the latest revision.

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=us&prodTypeId=15351&prodSeriesId=1121486&prodNameId=3288144
&swEnvOID=4024&swLang=8&mode=2&taskId=135&swItem=MTX-9aaf6b4b5c8d4b4f8718d0df83

hth,
Gord Andrews
New Member

Re: Smart Start 8.15 not returning after ACU.

Hi hth. Thanks for your prompt response.

Answer to one of your questions - CL360 - G5.

One issue seems to be 32 / 64 bit.
When I use the 32 bit version of the Smart Start CD it works ok until I exit.

What I've done: rather than getting into all the firmware upgrades, I've removed the working drives (mix of 72 GB and 146GB) and labelled them by bay so I can replace them and get the system working again if this upgrade fails.

I've inserted 4 fresh 146 GB drives DG146BALVN, created a raid 5 array which is currently either queued or in progress of "background parity initialization". (How to tell which?)

The ADU shows 419GB Raid 5.

My next step is to use the Windows 2008 backup of the working system that I have to restore the system onto the new Array.

Hopefully by specifying the IP address on the Deploy Server screen of Smart Start, I will be able to use this backup.
Why have I got 2 profiles????
Gord Andrews
New Member

Re: Smart Start 8.15 not returning after ACU.

The above restore is a "pull", using the Smart Start deploy over the network.

Is there an alterante way to use the Windows Server 2008 Backup / Restore to "push" from an already installed Server 2008. If so, how do you specify the target computer which has a blank Array configured, but no IP address assigned?
Why have I got 2 profiles????
Gord Andrews
New Member

Re: Smart Start 8.15 not returning after ACU.

I've updated the firmware from the CD HP Firmware Maintenance v. 8.20
Why have I got 2 profiles????