ML110 with P212 Smart Array RAID 1 not booting

[Mark O Connor]

I have a client with a ML110 G6 server, a P212 Smart Array controller with 2 x 250GB seagate non-hot plug drives configured for RAID 1. The server is running Windows SBS 2008 and has been runnning without any problems for six months.

Over the christmas break the server stopped responding. When we finally got access to the server we discovered that it had shutdown and would not boot. When I ran the offline ACU it reported that there were 2 healthy drives installed running RAID 0!! After a couple of hours on the phone with HP support I was advised that I would need to re-configure the array and reload the OS. This is a lot of work that I felt could still be avoided.

In desperation I unplugged 1 of the drives and powered up the server. When I was prompted that one of the drives wasn't responding I pressed F2 to fail it and the server continued to start up normally. Big sigh of relief followed by some backing up.

After making sure we had backups I shutdown the server plugged the 2nd drive back in and sure enough it will not boot. Unplug it, press F2 to fail the drive and it starts up and runs fine.

The server has a 12 month on-site warranty so I report all this to HP support assuming that I have a faulty drive and they will send me a replacement which I will plug in and the array will be automatically rebuilt. However I'm told that because when both drives are plugged in and the ACU reports that the drives are healthy on RAID 0 that there is nothing wrong with the drive and I will need to re-configure the array and re-install the OS and backups. Obviously this is a day or 2's work that I'd rather avoid if possible.

Any ideas on what I could try to get the array back without reloading the OS. I'm tempted to try and buy another drive and plug it in and see if it will rebuild the array.

[Michael A. McKenney]

Windows 2008, can you image it in backup like in Windows 7? You could try adding a new drive as a hot spare and see if it will fail over the the hot spare. Then add another hot spare and remove the other old drive.

[Ali]

Hi Mark,

Raid 0 does not provide any fault tolerance. so moment you unplug one drive the whole logical drive will fail and will not boot to OS.

So it could be Raid 1 configuration

Please capture the ACU/ADU logs and if possible screen shot of logical view. so that we could check the actual configuration and advice you the best and possible resolution for this issue.

thanks,
Aftab

[Michael A. McKenney]

He said RAID 1 failed. I could be a drive mismatch. I would add a spare and assign it to the RAID 1 array to see if it fails over.