Failed drive in NetRAID Assistant

[Rob_171]

For the hell of it, I went into NetRAID Assistant to make sure everything looks alright before moving data over. I started it up in View Only mode and it began scanning the channels. It got to one channel and just sat there for a while. Then a message popped up saying "Failed to get drive size". It shows the 3rd drive on the new cage that I installed as "Failed", but the light is still green. The drive has been working fine for about 3 weeks. Any ideas on this one? Thanks.

[Rob_171]

I have a little more information to provide.

The activity light remains green for quite some time. After a bit of research, I've been told that an activity light that remains green for more than one minute means the drive is spinning or hung.

So from there, what's my next step? Is the drive just bad all together and I need to replace it? Thanks.

[amhakassa]

Hi Rob,

The first thing I would sugget is to try to reseat the drive and try to rescan the channels in netraid assistant (you can do this by selecting rescan from adapter menu)
If the rescan went fine with out hanging or displaying the error message you had before, go ahead and check the phsycal property of the drive (you can do thi by right clicking the drive that was failed and slect properties)
If the drive size shows 0 under property definetly you would have to replace the drive
(other wise check the FW on the hard drive, check if there are any media and predictive failure on the drive and react accordingly)


If the drive is shows the correct size and no erros found right click the failed drive and select rebuild.

It is also a good thing to try a different empty slot if the drive works (if the drive works in a different slot this rule out that the slot where the bad drive was is bad)

If all this does not resolve the issue check if there is any bent pin on the drive or the cage

I hope this will help

Amha Kassa

[Mark Young_2]

Hi,

Just to add to Ahma's informed POST. I take it you never actually get into NetRAID assistant? If not, pull the drive you suspect as bad out a couple of inches and leave it that way. If that drive is hanging the system, then NetRAID Assistant should then continue loading properly once it is removed. Sometimes you will have to abort the Process in Task Manager and try loading it again.

Once you get in to NetRAID Assitant you can try pushing the drive back in to reseat it. If everything is okay, it should start a rebuild. I would then follow with the rest of Ahma's steps. If the drive seems to hang the system again or you cannot get properties, it is a very good sign that the drive has failed. You can try the drive in a different slot and the other steps Ahma outline but usually at this point the drive needs replacing.

Mark

[Rob_171]

Can I mess around with this hot swap drive while the server is on and people are using it? It's hard to find a downtime to do these sorts of things, but I don't want to mess anything up in the process. Thanks.

[Greg Carlson]

Rob,

You can pull a failed hdd from a server that is up and running. As long as the correct hdd is pulled and not one of your online hdds. The ID from left to right in a rack, bottom to top in a pedastal config starts ID 0,1,2,3,8,9

hth,
Greg

[Rob_171]

ID 12 is the one I have trouble with according to NetRAID. Is that the third one up on the left side of the cage?

[Greg Carlson]

That is correct, ID's in the second cage starting from the bottom is 10,11,12,13,14 and 15 is the top.

Pull the drive and replace it with the replacement hdd. If the server is up and running when you reseat the hdd, an automatic rebuild should kick off within netraid assist.

Ciao,
Greg

[Alicia White]

Which server do you have?

Typically, the SCSI IDs are in the following order (from bottom to top or left to right):
0, 1, 2, 3, 8, 9 (cage 1) (on right or bottom)
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (cage 2, if present)

So, ID 12 would be in the 2nd drive cage. It's the 3rd from the bottom in a tower or the 3rd from the left in a rack.


Alicia