First of all I have a server with a 3Ware 7500-8 (PATA) and disk configurations as follows:
Two 60Gig Western Digital (mirror - boot drive)
Four 160Gig Samsung Spinpoints (RAID5 - storage)
One 80Gig Western Digital (on motherboard header - scratch drive)
I have the array do a verify weekly and for the last two weeks the Samsung on port 6 dropped out with errors. Both times it was able to be removed, re added and rebuilt the array fine.
I backed up my data on the RAID5 to a USB drive and then, knowing that the drives contain the array information, I shuffled my IDE cables on the drives (moved them all up by one and moved the last to the bottom). My thoughts were I need to know if the drive is bad or it's the cable or maybe the 3Ware card that's bad.
Now boot the computer, I can see my array's in the 3Ware BIOS utility fine, they say they are ok and not degraded.
PROBLEM*********************
The computer won't BOOT, says no bootable media or whatever the BIOS message is that it can't find a boot drive.
What I think the problem is: The boot array (mirror) is now listed second in the 3Ware BIOS configuration utility, where I am 80% certain it was listed first before I did the cable swap. So I think it's looking at the storage array to try to boot which of course wont work. Motherboard BIOS still lists the 3Ware controller as the boot device.
QUESTION********************
If I delete my storage array in the 3Ware BIOS setup and recreate it so that it's listed as the second array will my data still be there? This is in an attempt to get the mirror listed first again so it will boot.
COMMENT/QUESTION***********
My old Promise Fasttrak 66 had the ability to mark the bootable array if you had more than one, why the heck doesn't 3Ware have that ability or am I totally missing the option to do this?
Two 60Gig Western Digital (mirror - boot drive)
Four 160Gig Samsung Spinpoints (RAID5 - storage)
One 80Gig Western Digital (on motherboard header - scratch drive)
I have the array do a verify weekly and for the last two weeks the Samsung on port 6 dropped out with errors. Both times it was able to be removed, re added and rebuilt the array fine.
I backed up my data on the RAID5 to a USB drive and then, knowing that the drives contain the array information, I shuffled my IDE cables on the drives (moved them all up by one and moved the last to the bottom). My thoughts were I need to know if the drive is bad or it's the cable or maybe the 3Ware card that's bad.
Now boot the computer, I can see my array's in the 3Ware BIOS utility fine, they say they are ok and not degraded.
PROBLEM*********************
The computer won't BOOT, says no bootable media or whatever the BIOS message is that it can't find a boot drive.
What I think the problem is: The boot array (mirror) is now listed second in the 3Ware BIOS configuration utility, where I am 80% certain it was listed first before I did the cable swap. So I think it's looking at the storage array to try to boot which of course wont work. Motherboard BIOS still lists the 3Ware controller as the boot device.
QUESTION********************
If I delete my storage array in the 3Ware BIOS setup and recreate it so that it's listed as the second array will my data still be there? This is in an attempt to get the mirror listed first again so it will boot.
COMMENT/QUESTION***********
My old Promise Fasttrak 66 had the ability to mark the bootable array if you had more than one, why the heck doesn't 3Ware have that ability or am I totally missing the option to do this?