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Raid help-dead drive

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by joe donahue

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Running W2k Advanced Server - 4 hard drives in a Raid array - have a hard yellow light on front display panel indicating drive 1 - how do I find what level RAID is configured? - I did run a consistency test from the RAID utility which I accessed during boot up and it said that one of the drives was dead. What do I need to do now?
Do I need an exact match to replace the drive?
I'm assuming because of the light that it is drive 1 that has failed. Unfortunatly, I am coming into this blind because my predecessor was fired and no documentation could be found.
The server is a Micron NetFrame 5200 it has a Mlyex array controller.
If someone could help or at least give me an idea of where the best place would be to seek help

6 replies

by shmaltz

It is usualy the best to get the exact same HD. To find out what level RAID, us the RAID utility.

by greybeard770

You are probably on the right track suspecting the drive with the yellow light. It would be best to replace the bad drive with one just like it, although one with more capacity might work also.
http://www.mylex.com/products/index.html shows comeMylex RAID management tools. You should be able to run something like that to display the current configuration. Maybe the utility you used at bootup would do that also. Sometimes you can just make a drive go to online status and it will work, but I would still replace the disk as soon as possible. A call to Mylex might be time well spent.

by curlergirl

The same BIOS ROM utility you used to check the drive should be able to tell you how the array is configured. I'm not familiar with this server, so I'm not sure - if it's not in the ROM utility, look around for a floppy disk that may be used to setthe array configuration. My guess is that it's a RAID 5 at least, and possibly one of the drives is configured as a spare. If so, you should be able to use the same utility to rebuild the array with the spare. Then you can replace the failed drive and make it a spare. If it's not a spare, you can still simply remove and replace it and then use the utility to rebuild the array. Some cards also have on-line utilities that will run while the server is running the OS and rebuild the array as you go. You need to use a drive of at least the same capacity as the one you are replacing - it's best if it is exactly the same. You might be able to get the drive to spin up again by shutting the server down completely and bringing it back up, butI would replace the drive anyway. I would check with Micron also to see if they have a user guide available for the RAID controller that might help you out with the details of what utilities are available for it and how they work. Hope this helps!

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