3ware card shows drives, but no array

[Stereodude]

I have a 3ware 7506 raid card (8 port) and have 8 drives hooked up to it. 2 are 60 gig drives in a RAID-1 config, and the other 6 are 200 gig drives forming a 1TB RAID-5 array.

One of the 200's got cranky and one way or another, the 3ware card no longer thinks there is a 2nd array. It shows the 6 drives, but doesn't think they belong to an array. It only sees the RAID-1 array of the 2 60 gig drives. It seems there is no way to force the card to see an array on the 6 200 gig drives. If I try to create an array from the 6 drives it will destroy all the data on them.

Of course I don't have backups of the vast majority of this array's data because I was nieve to what could happen.

Any ideas, tips, or suggestions?

 

[Bozo]

In the utility that comes with a 3Ware card there is an option to rebuild and an option to re-initialize the drives. Maybe one of these would fix your problem.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Stereodude]

In the utility that comes with a 3Ware card there is an option to rebuild and an option to re-initialize the drives. Maybe one of these would fix your problem.

Bozo :mrgrn:

Which utility are you talking about? The windows one?

 

[Bozo]

Yes, this utility run in Windows.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Stereodude]

The Windows utility only works if it sees an array to which the drive belongs. In my case it does not see an array for the drives to belong to, so the Windows tool does not do anything.

 

[GIANT]

If you are absolutely certain that none of the drives have actually "failed," then I would completely delete all arrays in the configuration and then rebuild them O-N-L-Y by adding the existing drive members back to the array in the same order as they were before.

In other words, you want to write a new configuration to the non-volatile memory (EEPROM or Flash Memory) on the 3ware controller and leave everything else absolutely alone. Don't let the array utility write a thing to any of the drives or (obviously) allow them to be formatted when you define the array. It should completely recognise the RAID-5 and RAID-1 volumes, and hopefully not as "failed." You might even want to practice this with some spare drives just to make sure you know how the resident 3Ware controller firmware will act doing the steps mentioned above.

Has the latest firmware been flashed to the 3Ware RAID controller? There may have been a bug in the old firmware. Other than that, there is a chance that the non-volatile memory has experienced a failure.

 

[MaxBurn]

The array information is stored on the drives in a 3ware system unless they have changes something recently. You can move arrays to different controllers no big deal. When I moved from my old 6xxx card to my 7500-8 I just basically swapped the card, no redefining arrays etc. I emailed 3ware tech support before hand to make sure I could do this and they said no problem, doesn't even matter if you put the drives in different ports or shuffle the order they are in either.

What this means is that you have either a bad card or lost data on more than one drive. Do you have another card to test with? Doesn't even have to be the same model / generation as I understand it, although you might want to limit your testing to a newer card only.

 

[time]

This seems like a good place to ask:

Do you need the 3Ware controller to read a drive that has been in a RAID 1 configuration?

 

[MaxBurn]

This seems like a good place to ask:

Do you need the 3Ware controller to read a drive that has been in a RAID 1 configuration?

Never tried it with 3ware, don't know. I do know that the answer is no with Promise RAID 1.

 

[Stereodude]

Well, I've been in contact with 3ware / AMCC and they have some sort of script / utility that can restore the array. Apparently the array information is stored on the drives in some control blocks, not on the card and one way or another it got cleared out.

They sent me a utility that reads a some information from each of the 8 drives on the array. I sent them back those files, they will process / parse them, and send me back another utility with some new files that will update the control blocks on the drives so the array will show back up. They're supposed to send me the updated files and the utility on Monday.

Their support is not the fastest in the world, but for free, I won't complain much.

 

[Bozo]

Please keep us posted.
I have 6-3Ware cards in various boxes. :eekers:

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Howell]

This seems like a good place to ask:

Do you need the 3Ware controller to read a drive that has been in a RAID 1 configuration?

I am pretty sure I have tried this with 3Ware before and it did not work. As with Maxburn I have had a similar experience with yet another brand controller (highpoint->via?).

 

[Howell]

This seems like a good place to ask:

Do you need the 3Ware controller to read a drive that has been in a RAID 1 configuration?

I am pretty sure I have tried this with 3Ware before and it did not work. As with Maxburn I have had a similar experience with yet another brand controller (highpoint->via?).

That said you could always Ghost the drive in sector mode and try it.

 

[Bozo]

I have always used Drive Image 5.0 or 5.5 on RAID controllers without any problems.
I am now testing Acronis True Image and so far it has worked well with RAID setups.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Stereodude]

Well...

I got the files back from them to restore the array and that worked ok, but I've hit a snag. The array faulted out one of the drives that should be ok, and not the drive that's acting up. So, I'm in the process of running WD's disc diagnostic tools on both of the drives. So far they both pass a quick test.

The drive that I think is bad parks the heads and then spins up when the array tries to initialize while windows is booting / loading the 3ware drivers. That of course makes the wonderful noise you don't want to hear from your array. At that point the computer basically freezes because HD access becomes extremely slow.

If these drives check out ok, I'm going to run the script 3ware sent me again and try to fault out the drive that I think is causing the problem and replace it with my spare.

 

[P5-133XL]

When I've had array problems with multiple drives kicking out it has invariably been because of y-adapters on the power plugs....I hate Y-adapters and have switched to T-adapters to deal with the same issues.

But if you have unacceptable noises then you may simply have a bad drive pulling too much current so that the PS starves the other drives causing others to randomly fail.

 

[Bozo]

In the past 2 weeks I had a hard drive start making weird noises when accessed. I thought the drive was going bad.
At the same time I was trying to straighten out the cable mess inside my case. I bought some round Antec IDE cables and installed them. This cleaned up the inside of the case, and the hard drive stopped making weird noises. :eekers:
Coincidence???

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[P5-133XL]

That could easily be a bad PATA cable causing repeated CRC errors. When you replaced the cables, the bad cable was replaced and thereby no more noise... Another alternative is that you had a bad power connection and the process of replacing the cables was enough fiddling to improve the power connection. And the least likely was that the ribbon cables were causing air-flow issues which caused a HD to overheat and now with the rounded cables there is better airflow and thereby no more overheating.

That being said round IDE cables tend to cause more noise problems than flat. But, if it works for you, who am I to complain.

 

[Stereodude]

Ok, well the story gets longer...

The two drives that were acting up both check out to be 100% A-ok according to WD's tools. I did a 100% surface read and they both pass.

I re-ran the 3ware script and let it fault out the "bad" drive and now it works in a degraded state (no fault tolerance). I tried to rebuild with my spare drive, but it says it is too small, even though it's the same size, so I think the 3ware script is slightly flawed.

3ware has advised me to copy all the data off it and rebuild it from scratch. So, I ordered an 8th WD2000JB from newegg, and I managed to scrounge up enough HD space to back the whole thing up.

I'm still not really sure why the whole thing is acting up, and why I have several drives that are 100% ok (per WD) that don't like to work on the 3ware card any more. I think the problem is caused by dust on the 3ware card. I was having problems getting the card to keep the 5 remaining drives online the other day, so I took the card out and cleaned the back with an old toothbrush. That brushed off all the dust that wouldn't blow off from compressed air. When I put the card back in the machine it fired right up without any problems.

 

[Fushigi]

I think the problem is caused by dust on the 3ware card.

A trick for cleaning the PCI/AGP/whatever connector: Use a pencil eraser. The plain red eraser on the end of a #2, for instance, leaves nice shiny gold connectors. I've done this since the 80s and have never had an issue with slot connectors cleaned this way. I used it a lot when I worked for a manufacturer; the PCs on the shop floor were always getting caked with dust/soot/whatever. Some would just stop working after 6 or so months from all of the buildup inside the case. I'd vac out the machine to remove the approx. 1/2" layer of buildup, clean/reseat the cards, and it was good to go for another 6 months.

It always made me think about the people who worked there and how much of that they wre breathing in.

 

[MaxBurn]

Now that I think about it there was a firmware patch released for WD drives some time ago for compatibility issues with 3Ware controllers. I assumed this patch was in all new drives from about the past year or so, but maybe not. Hence their new RAID edition drives specifically built for RAID scenarios. I bet it's on WD's website.

 

[MaxBurn]

Now that I think about it there was a firmware patch released for WD drives some time ago for compatibility issues with 3Ware controllers. I assumed this patch was in all new drives from about the past year or so, but maybe not. Hence their new RAID edition drives specifically built for RAID scenarios. I bet it's on WD's website.

http://support.wdc.com/download/downloadxml.asp#11

Version Version 1.07
Publish Date Apr, 2003
Description This utility runs within DOS and is used to update WD drives that are connected to one or more 3Ware 7500-X IDE (Parallel ATA) RAID controllers. Affected drives: WD drives with capacities between 40GB and 120GB. WD drives with greater than 120GB capacity with Mfg. date codes earlier than 3/25/03.

 

[Stereodude]

Now that I think about it there was a firmware patch released for WD drives some time ago for compatibility issues with 3Ware controllers. I assumed this patch was in all new drives from about the past year or so, but maybe not. Hence their new RAID edition drives specifically built for RAID scenarios. I bet it's on WD's website.

http://support.wdc.com/download/downloadxml.asp#11

Version Version 1.07
Publish Date Apr, 2003
Description This utility runs within DOS and is used to update WD drives that are connected to one or more 3Ware 7500-X IDE (Parallel ATA) RAID controllers. Affected drives: WD drives with capacities between 40GB and 120GB. WD drives with greater than 120GB capacity with Mfg. date codes earlier than 3/25/03.

I ran that. All the WD2000JB drives were either made post fix, or were already patched.

 

[Stereodude]

I'm out of town in Boston for work this week, so I'm not going to get to play with it until Saturday at the soonest, but so far it's working ok. (I've been checking in on it via VNC.)

 

[Platform]

The array information is stored on the drives in a 3ware system unless they have changes something recently...

Ouch! This would be the RAID metadata. Valuable stuff!!!

I'm quite surprised that 3Ware has not made utilities available to the end user for backing up (and restoring) RAID metadata.

 

[MaxBurn]

The array information is stored on the drives in a 3ware system unless they have changes something recently...

Ouch! This would be the RAID metadata. Valuable stuff!!!

I'm quite surprised that 3Ware has not made utilities available to the end user for backing up (and restoring) RAID metadata.

I would be suprised if they did actually, you can seriously hose your info using that stuff. Backing up and saving this I don't think will do anyone any good because as soon as you change something on the disk (defrag?) and then restore the array info later you are left with a pile of junk info, everything corrupt as it wasn't where it was before.

That is assuming the array info goes to the file level though. If it only records the drive/partition info you might find a use for this type of utility.